Aamir Khan has attempted something new yet again. The man, who never tires of taking risks (remember how he played a pot-bellied father of four in Dangal way back in 2016 when he was shining as a hero, as he is even today) and doesn’t shy away from treading the unbeaten path provided he is convinced that it will pay off, has done it again. He has launched Aamir Khan Talkies, a channel on YouTube, to take films to the masses.
Just a few weeks back, Aamir had created a stir in the industry when he declined an offer of Rs. 120 crore from Amazon for the streaming rights of his latest film, Sitaare Zameen Par. His logic was clear and he made it known by spelling it out loudly — that cinema is for the big screen, first and foremost. He explained that he was not in favour of letting his film stream on an OTT platform after just eight weeks of theatrical release, which, by convention in Bollywood, is referred to as the theatrical window. He also explained that when a viewer watches his film on a streaming platform, he may not necessarily do it because he wants to see the film but he definitely does it because he has paid the subscription fee of that digital platform. In other words, Aamir was not happy that his film was being watched “by the way”, not because someone wanted to see his and only his film.
This is actually what led Aamir to come up with the idea of a YouTube channel which would stream his films. Following the pay-per-view model, Aamir has priced Sitaare Zameen Par — which will be available from August 1 on the channel — at Rs. 100 per person. Actually, a person can buy one view of the film and show it to his entire family, maybe even friends and, if he so desires, to his “entire village”, as the actor-producer put it.
The price of Rs. 100 was decided to make it affordable to one and all, said Aamir at the press conference yesterday (July 29) at Hotel Land’s End. “Films were known as a mass medium,” elaborated Khan, adding that it was his endeavour to bring back the masses and cinema together. Explaining further, Aamir continued, “India has a dearth of cinemas. Only about 2-3% of the population goes to the cinemas. I wanted to take cinema to the balance 97-98% of the population. My logic is: if you can’t come to the cinema for whatever reason, I’ll get the cinema to you.” Aamir’s YouTube channel is the cinema which will reach every single home which has internet connectivity.
Some may wonder whether the actor-producer has done the right thing by not selling the film to Amazon and instead releasing it on YouTube. But my thinking is different. By launching Aamir Khan Talkies, Aamir may have actually started an additional revenue stream. The time may not be far when OTT platforms would acquire streaming rights of films over and above the YouTube rights being exploited by the producer or someone else. Just for this, the maverick actor and producer needs to be lauded.
Although the channel will have only Sitaare Zameen Par to begin with, there will be other films of Aamir Khan Productions also made available as time goes by. “We may even upload films of other producers,” revealed Aamir, but “the curation will be in our hands”.
Gunjan Soni, country managing director for YouTube India, was also present at the launch of Aamir Khan Talkies or Janta Ka Theatre, as the tag-line says. She expressed great joy at this association and said, since it was uncharted territory, they had no idea of what revenues Sitaare Zameen Par would yield from YouTube.
