Producer Vishnu Vardhan Induri has decided to release his multi-lingual Thalaivii on digital platforms just two weeks after its theatrical release. The film, which stars Kangana Ranaut and Arvind Swamy, has been made in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi. All the three versions will be released theatrically on 10th September. Zee is the worldwide distributor for all the three languages. The digital rights of the Hindi version are with Netflix while the streaming rights of the Tamil and Telugu versions are with Amazon Prime.
Since box-office collections of newly released films are not upto the mark, Vishnu Vardhan has opted for keeping the window of just two weeks between his film’s theatrical and OTT release. It may be mentioned here that the window, as decided by producers and exhibitors in the pre-pandemic days was a minimum of eight weeks. However, producer Vashu Bhagnani, whose Bell Bottom was the first theatrical release after the lifting of the second lockdown, convinced the national multiplex chains to allow him to offer the film for its digital premiere four weeks after its cinema release, instead of eight weeks. The considerate multiplex chains agreed because they saw logic in Bhagnani’s argument that he was taking a risk by offering the film to cinemas before its OTT premiere as it was the first release and he wasn’t sure whether the public would brave it out to the cinemas amidst the fear of the impending third Coronavirus wave. Well, Vishnu Vardhan is taking a similar risk, probably even bigger because he has three versions of his film slated for release on 10th September. Since he is showing solidarity with the cinemas which need new films to screen every week, he expects the multiplex chains in the whole of India to also permit him to premiere all the three versions of the film on OTT after two weeks of their theatrical release.
It does not need to be specified that had Vishnu Vardhan or Vashu Bhagnani gone for an OTT premiere of their film, the price which the digital rights would’ve fetched would have been much more than they have got for an OTT release two/four weeks after the theatrical release. Whether the shortfall would be recovered from their theatrical shares is the risk they both have taken. If not for anything else, the national multiplex chains need to support Vardhan, like Bhagnani, for taking this risk and for standing in solidarity with the exhibition sector.
Someone needed to make a beginning. Vashu Bhagnani, Anand Pandit (Chehre) and Vishnu Vardhan are the producers who have shown exemplary courage by releasing/planning to release their films on the big screen in spite of cinemas in Maharashtra (a major state in terms of box-office revenues) still being shut, and cinemas in most of the other states permitted to be functional at only 50% of the capacity. Otherwise, there are several other producers whose films are absolutely complete and ready for release. While they have not succumbed to the temptation to premiere their films digitally, they are unwilling to release them till better times return. That’s the difference between them on the one hand and Bhagnani, Pandit and Vardhan on the other. For, the three mentioned producers and also others who follow in their footsteps till normalcy returns, are, and will keep, supplying their films to single-screen cinemas and multiplexes just so that the public once again gets into the habit of watching films on the big screen. Like they are supporting the cinemas, they also deserve the support of the exhibition sector.