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Gulabo Sitabo, director Shoojit Sarkar’s slice-of-life comedy, is set to become the first Bollywood film to skip theatres for a digital release as cinemas remain shut because of coronavirus fears.
The movie, set in Lucknow and featuring Ayushmann Khurrana and Amitabh Bachchan, will start streaming on Amazon Prime Video on Friday after its producers ignored the desperate pleas by theatre owners to wait till cinemas reopen.
The producers decided to trade off the prospects of a bigger, but uncertain, reward from a theatrical release to the certainty of earnings from selling the rights to Amazon Prime, creating history in the process.
Theatre owners fear online releases will not only erode earnings but may even threaten their businesses. But despite the . But despite the controversy, experts said the buzz around the film is still lukewarm. “The conversation around the film automatically becomes limited to the audience universe that watches the platform, which in this case, is an upmarket, urban, educated crowd. But even for the limited audience base, the approach doesn’t seem too aggressive,” film trade and exhibition expert Girish Johar said.
According to a report by Media Partners Asia, an independent provider of research, advisory and consulting services across the media, entertainment, sports, telecom and technology industries, Amazon Prime Video has notched up a subscriber base of 17 million in India. Not only is that a fraction of the total Internet audience base, but a top film in India can record footfall of 37 million over its lifetime.
Prime Video only released a trailer, the audio jukebox and a couple of behind-the-scenes from the making of the film as part of its marketing campaign.
In an interview about the direct-to-digital release of the seven films the company had acquired, Gaurav Gandhi, director and country general manager, Amazon Prime Video India, said its producing partners see how Amazon has marketed its originals and are confident it will do the same for these films. “So they don’t have to worry about marketing and distribution and that we will go super deep into India across 4,000 plus towns and into the world,” Gandhi had added.
One reason for the subdued promotions could be the realisation that the world is dealing with a tragedy of epic proportions, Johar said. An aggressive approach could backfire.
Industry experts say a direct-to-digital release does not augur well for lead actors Amitabh Bachchan and Ayushmann Khurrana, especially the latter who has been on a winning spree with hits like Bala ( ₹110.97 crore), Dream Girl ( ₹139.37 crore), Article 15 ( ₹65.17 crore), Andhadhun ( ₹73.37 crore), Badhaai Ho ( ₹134.46 crore), Shubh Mangal Savdhaan ( ₹41.98 crore) and Bareilly Ki Barfi ( ₹34.02 crore).
However, not all is lost for the film. Even though trade experts say the film had a shot at box office collections of ₹100 crore, the ₹65 crore sale to Amazon has easily helped recover its approximately ₹30 crore budget. Plus, given that there is no opening weekend to speak of, the film can discover an audience on the platform for its entire lifetime.
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