Content got even more global during the pandemic months

The world over, viewers consumed more than 1.6 billion hours of 'Squid Game' in the first 28 days of its release in 2021.

You might have rooted for him, yet it’s unlikely that the name Lee Jung-jae rings a bell. Lee plays Seong Gi-hun, one of the contenders in Squid Game that has gone to become the most successful Netflix show ever. The numbers are staggering – 1.65 billion hours viewed in its first 28 days and No 1 in markets across the world including India.  The second most successful show on that list – Bridgerton – is far behind, with 625 million hours for the same period.

A few months ago, I caught up with Antonio Banderas in a virtual one-to-one chat around the launch of his new Icon fragrance. That conversation quickly drifted towards the future of the entertainment industry in a post-pandemic world. Banderas calls it ‘The globalisation of visual spectacles”. It’s what he used to refer to the runaway success of La Casa Papel (Money Heist) in global markets like India. This was a couple of months before Jaipur-based tech firm Verve Logic declared September 3 a ‘Netflix and Chill’ holiday to enable its employees to binge watch the season 5 premiere of Money Heist.

This globalisation of visual spectacles has probably been the defining trend of 2021 for the entertainment industry. Just like many other COVID-19 induced trends, this is not an isolated development but a culmination of factors that have been building up long before this decade. In November, an Economist podcast asked if Hollywood stars were losing their sparkle. This is an industry that has been built on the star system. Savvy marketers and Hollywood agents built large than life images of stars who in turn provided the insurance for big budget blockbusters with their box office clout.  Earlier this year Scarlett Johansson sued Disney for sacrificing the box office potential of Black Widow by opting for a streaming release. Disney countered her claim reiterating that Disney+ with Premier Access has significantly enhanced her ability to earn additional compensation.

It's not just the Korean invasion, Hellbound has followed the success of Squid Game. Malayalam cinema has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the OTT wave in India. Through much of the lockdown I kept sharing lists of ‘must watch’ Malayalam films with friends across India and in other parts of the world. Kumblangi Nights became a watershed of sorts for the Malayalam film industry on OTT platforms. This was probably the film that made Fahadh Faasil a pan-Indian phenomenon without a nation-wide theatrical release. Sreedhar Pillai, an entertainment industry tracker and columnist has been keeping tabs of Malayalam cinema for decades. He attributes this success to the quality of Content. “Malayalam cinema is rooted in nativity and the content is not star-driven”.

This is exactly the shift we’re seeing this decade. Even Hollywood is leaning on intellectual properties rather than stars. The real heroes now are Star Wars and Avengers or Batman. The stars who play them don’t matter as much. Big stars still bring their fans to theatres especially in star-driven industries like Tamil, Telugu or Hindi cinema but even in these languages, content is driving success. Pillai still believes that action-genre films need theatrical films to succeed but a whole new generation of younger audiences has moved on from star-driven content. Its why Turkish dramas are now a phenomenon across India or Korean K-dramas are big in small-town India.

Mumbai-based author Naomi Datta pins the popularity of Malayalam stars like Fahad Faasil and Dulquer Salman to OTT platforms and Twitter. She still remembers being floored by Premam, the first Malayalam film she watched on screen. Back then Malayalam films depended on limited multiplex releases in the metros and probably drew the same audiences as Iranian films. “OTT platforms have changed that but so has Twitter” Naomi equates this to a hipster phenomenon – “Twitter has become a platform for bragging rights, that you’ve watched the latest Malayalam film”. In many ways that makes you cool and also a non-conformist who steers ahead of Bollywood staples.

The closure of cinemas in India during the first and second COVID waves turned out to be an opportunity for the Malayalam film industry. According to Pillai, Fahadh Faasil’s Malik clocked in more revenue as an Amazon Prime exclusive than it would have made from a theatrical release. S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Kagan media research unit suggests that Netflix will spend $13.6 billion in 2021 on content (up 26% over 2020). Netflix is leaning towards a scatter gun approach by commissioning different genres of shows and from across the world. Gloria, a tense cold-war era thriller. became the first ever show from Portugal produced for global audiences while the popular French comedy series – Call my agent, was remade for Hindi audiences. Exotic locations like Norway in Ragnarök also allowed viewers across the world to travel vicariously through a period when global travel was severely disrupted.

If Netflix has its way, the stars of the future will not be shaped by Hollywood agents but by its algorithms. It’s why Antonio Banderas blends caution with his optimism for the next decade which he believes will be the most exciting for the entertainment industry. “OTT platforms are creating new audiences as well as jobs, but we have to careful that we don’t lose quality film making in the process.” He adds that the pressure is also on the audiences who need to be more selective about what they watch. That’s sometimes easier said than done on days when we just want to Netflix and chill.