A new trend has arrived in Bollywood: Simultaneous releases on the marquee and the net.
Film-maker Chandan Arora’s latest movie starring south Indian actor Siddharth has made a history of sorts in the Hindi film industry. It released on YouTube on the same day when it opened at the box office. The movie has been rated high for its content but did not have any big Bollywood star to boast of. So the film-makers decided to release the movie on the Internet and theatres simultaneously to take their product to a wider audience.
“The movie has premiered internationally on Internet. Many times films high on content but low on star value don’t get optimally distributed in overseas markets. With an online release such movies will get to reach a wider set of audiences. This will help curb piracy too and will also be an additional revenue model for the producers,” says a source.
Analysts say this new trend of releasing movies on the Internet will pave the way for other Indian film companies to look outside a conventional theatrical release for alternate modes of distribution.
By releasing this film on YouTube, the films will offer fans outside India a high-quality and on-demand option of watching the latest Bollywood flick.
Sandeep Bhargava, CEO of the advisory company to The Indian Film Company (Cyprus) Ltd which made the movie, says,
“YouTube is the world’s most popular online video community. The association of our film with YouTube will help us reach out to overseas audiences in a cost-effective manner and will also help curb piracy.” The company has also been associated with movies like Ghajini, Jab We Met.
Actor Abhay Deol says, “It is great to explore new mediums. You make movies to take it to the world and show it to as many people as possible. Some of my movies in the past have unfortunately not got the kind of release they deserved. So I’m very excited about this. There are some movies that get limited release and this medium is only a fair one for those films to expand their viewership.”
As a revenue model, Bollywood is also looking to rent the new releases on YouTube much like several small and medium budget Hollywood movies.
“To ensure that the revenues from the Indian theatrical release are maximised, Siddharth’s movie will be not be available for the YouTube traffic originating from India at the moment. It will
be available for a meagre rent amount on YouTube overseas,” says the source.
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