The eye-catching teaser of Zee Studios, Ali Abbas Zafar and Himanshu Mehra’s Khaali Peeli was released a few minutes back. The teaser is silent about the date of release as also about where the Ishaan Khatter, Ananya Pandey and Jaideep Ahlawat starrer would release.
Rumours are rife that the debut directorial venture of Maqbool Khan might go in for theatrical as well as OTT release. In other words, the film will hit the big screen simultaneously with the small screen. Of the OTT platforms, the obvious option would be Zee5, one is apt to think, because Zee Studios and Zee5 belong to the same group. But the inside story is that the film may be premiered on various OTT platforms as a TVOD release and then streamed on Zee5. If the cinemas reopen soon, it may follow the pre-lockdown path of theatrical release followed by OTT (Zee5) release. But if cinemas don’t reopen soon or if footfalls in cinemas (after they reopen) are not inspiring enough for the producers to put out their film solely on the big screen, they just might have a theatrical release alongwith a TVOD release across various OTT platforms. This may be followed by streaming on Zee5.
When asked, Shariq Patel of Zee Studios replied, “As of now, we ourselves have no clarity. Nobody knows when cinemas will be granted permission to reopen. Since our film was nearly ready, we decided to release the teaser. But we have not decided its release strategy, about whether it will have a theatrical release or an OTT release or a mixed release. We are waiting and watching. That is why the teaser does not mention the date or even month of release.” Talking about the film’s shooting, Shariq shared, “Just a couple of days’ shooting remains to complete the film, and that should be done soon. TVOD, OTT, cinemas… we’ve been talking about all these but inconclusively. Only when we have clarity about the reopening of cinemas will we be able to take a final decision on about the date as well as platform/s of release.”
