It was just today morning when the news of Amitabh Bachchan and Ayushmann Khurrana starrer Gulabo Sitabo releasing on OTT platform came out. Keeping the lockdown in mind, the makers of the movie decided to release the film on Amazon Prime instead of waiting for theaters to open. The movie is slated to start streaming from 12th June.
Gulabo Sitabo thus, became the first big movie to directly have an OTT release due to Coronavirus lockdown.
Earlier, this Shoojit Sircar directorial was slated to release on 17th April. But as Coronavirus is not stopping soon, the makers have taken this step.
Since the lockdown, the theaters are closed too and are facing a lot of financial difficulties as well. Hence, as soon as the news of Gulabo Sitabo getting an OTT release came out, the owners of PVR Pictures and INOX reacted to it.
Kamal Gianchandani, CEO of PVR Pictures, the largest cinema chain in India, said, “We are disappointed with Gulabo Sitabo’s decision to go straight to a streaming platform. We were hoping that the producers would accede to our request to hold back their film’s release till cinemas reopened.”
He added, “Cinema exhibition has regularly faced competition from new emerging distribution platforms over the last many years, and it has continued to enjoy cine-goers’ patronage and affinity.”
However, the third phase of lockdown is set to end on 17th May in India, still there is no hope for malls and theaters to re-open soon.
Talking about the same, the co-producer of the film Ronnie Lahiri said that moving away from the traditional release system was a difficult decision. One of the things that played on their minds, he said, was the fact that once theatres open up, producers would be scrambling for release windows and each Friday could see as many as six releases.
“We’re facing a once-in-a-lifetime phenomena, not seen since World War 2. These are the times when things change. Initially, people have apprehensions but one has to adapt. That’s how human civilisations have prospered. The minute we stop adapting, we’re done. Instead of waiting for the situation to get better, you tackle it with other alternatives.”
“See, it’s not always about commerce or business. A film is a labour of love and you want people to see it as soon as possible. We were originally supposed to come on April 17 in theatres. In this bleak time, if we can entertain people who are only thinking about the pandemic, then why not?” added Ronnie.
Not only this, INOX reacted to this news as well. They put out an official statement. It read,
“INOX would like to express extreme displeasure and disappointment on an announcement made by a production house today, to release their movie directly on an OTT platform by skipping the theatrical window run. The decision of the production house to deviate from the globally prevalent content windowing practice is alarming and disconcerting.
Cinemas and content creators have always been into mutually beneficial partnerships, where one’s action provided fillip to another’s revenues. INOX has been investing profoundly towards adding world class quality screens, across the country, only to provide more eyeballs to the great content being produced. This partnership has endured for decades, and has provided succour to each other. In these troubled times, it is disturbing to see one of the partners not interested in continuing the mutually beneficial relationship, especially when the need of the hour is to stand shoulder to shoulder with each other, and bring the film industry back to its vibrant best.
Such acts, though isolated, vitiate the atmosphere of mutual partnership and paint these content producers as fair-weather friends rather than all-weather life-long partners. Needless to say, INOX will be constrained to examine its options, and reserves all rights, including taking retributive measures, in dealing with such fair-weather friends.
INOX would like to reiterate that as the backbone of the cinematic value chain, this windowing pattern has done wonders in terms of revenues for the content creators and all other stakeholders, as it offers them the opportunity to extract the best from all available mediums, which include cinemas, OTT platforms as well as satellite.
INOX would like to urge all content creators not to skip the theatrical run, and stay with the age old and established windowing pattern, which is in the best interests of all stakeholders in the value chain.”
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