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The uncertainty around reopening of cinemas may have caused anxiety to Bollywood’s top producers, but it has brought cheer to small and medium-scale filmmakers who have managed to negotiate profitable deals with video streaming platforms.
Easily recovering their ₹25-30 crore budgets, with a 20-30% premium in some cases, industry experts say video-on-demand platforms have consciously overpaid for these films, something they would not have done under ordinary circumstances, to meet increasing consumer demand.
Streaming viewership has spiked to unprecedented levels over the past three months.
According to an EY study, 61% consumers are streaming more content than they were before the lockdown with time spent on video streaming surging 1.2 times to an average of 4.2 hours per user per week.
“Of course, the streaming services will have to pay a premium; no filmmaker is going to undervalue his film at this point,” Atul Mohan, editor of trade magazine Complete Cinema said, adding that OTT platforms in India will have to bleed over the next couple of years and keep acquisition prices high if they want to build rich libraries for an audience base expanding by the day.
Mohan refers to films such as Gulabo Sitabo and Gunjan Saxena-The Kargil Girl that were lapped up by Amazon Prime Video and Netflix respectively for nearly twice the amount they would have got in a normal scenario. At ₹65 crore, Gulabo Sitabo has more than recovered its ₹30 crore budget and made a big profit.
“This has to be viewed holistically. Everyone including us, film producers and talent knows release windows have changed and certain revenue streams are not on the table anymore but everyone has to rationalize their mindsets to provide value to customers,” Vijay Subramaniam, director and head, content, Amazon Prime Video had said when asked about acquisition prices being higher for these films.
Meanwhile, Disney+ Hotstar is slated to announce a solid line-up of direct-to-digital releases including Kriti Sanon-starrer Mimi and crime drama The Big Bull, besides its in-house Fox Star productions like Laxmmi Bomb, Dil Bechara, Lootcase and others.
“Digital releases were earlier linked to the theatrical box office of a film and helped recover around 10% of the basic investment. Post-covid, that has escalated to at least 75-80% on an average,” said Neeraj Roy, founder and chief executive officer, Hungama Digital Media, which runs the Hungama video and music apps.
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