The fate of the film industry is like a football match between ticket prices, OTTs, budget constraints and audience reaction. Let’s discuss point by point.
The greed of big heroes has driven movie budgets sky-high.
The producer became the last to eat something, that too a marginal profit in case the film becomes a success. If not, he has to bear the losses or else should be wise enough to oversell it and distribute the losses to the distributors.
This game was almost supposed to end with the start of the Corona pandemic in 2020. Many believed that the industry had collapsed and could not be reborn.
But surprisingly, OTT platforms have used the situation and become a powerful entertainment medium.
People have also started to get used to these sitting platforms in their homes during lockdowns. Although the theaters were closed for quite a long time and opened later with 50% occupancy, OTT platforms came forward to buy the movies at huge prices.
This made the producers sigh of relief, but knowing this, the heroes increased their salaries even further.
After the third wave of coronavirus, things calmed down and people started coming to the cinema. But attendance has dropped significantly. Only big star movies could get some traction and that too in the early days. The fate of small films is miserable without encouraging collections.
Cinema activity cannot function without small and mid-range films. Big movies can’t be served every week. They must secure rents of at least Rs 3-4 lakh per week. Moreover, the refreshments and parking business also only happens when the audience comes to the theaters.
The golden age is over for theaters watching the current trend. Other than that, OTTs now dictate terms to filmmakers when signing deals.
So to keep the OTTs at bay, all the producers showed up to make some decisions. One of them is not to sell any film to the OTT platform until two months after the theatrical release. In fact, they are of the opinion that people are not coming to theaters because OTTs are streaming within a month.
If this is done, the OTT platforms also conclude a tight negotiation for the broadcasting rights.
Keeping that aside, there are no big movies in the upcoming season. All the upcoming movies from Prabhas, Pawan, Ram Charan, NTR will only arrive in 2023. So, in the meantime, the movie industry is keeping a check on the OTTs.
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