ANDAR KI KAHANI! | 12 December, 2020

If the terribly poor box-office collections of a recent release are baffling the trade, it’s not surprising. For, the collections are indeed very disastrous. But if you’ve seen the film, you won’t feel baffled. For, the film is actually pathetic. Blame it on the lack of inertia among the public to return to the cinemas in these trying times or whatever else but the fact is that the film deserved to fare no better than this.

Well, this is not what we are saying. This is what a streaming platform had expected. Read on for a very insightful story.

The OTT platform, which, before the pandemic lockdown started, had the streaming rights of the film for release eight weeks after the theatrical window, acquired its premiere rights once the lockdown happened. In fact, this film was in the bouquet of films offered by the multi-film producer to the streaming platform for premiering. However, the acquisition team of the streaming company happened to watch the film a few weeks back. It is being said that those who saw it were only short of fainting. They disliked the film so much that they promptly told the producer that they couldn’t give the enhanced price to the producer for its premiere rights. They also offered to revert to the theatrical-first-then-OTT-release agreement. That’s how the film had a theatrical release. The film will release on the OTT platform after the exclusive theatrical window is over. Of course, the producer will get his reported price of 16 from the streaming platform for the digital rights AFTER theatrical release. But just imagine, he would have got around 6 more for the premiere rights. Will he recoup the ‘loss’ of Rs. 6 crore from the cinemas? It would be a miracle if he even recovered one-sixth of the 6. For, after eight weeks, when it starts streaming on OTT, it will not be a premiere release. In other words, it will be an old film, devoid of its jawani. That then is the andar ki kahani!