'RRR' pushes small-screen release to 75-90 days after it opens in theatres. Will other big films follow suit?

Alia Bhatt as Sita in 'RRR', releasing in theatres on January 7, 2022. (Image: Screen grab)

Thankfully, someone has taken the lead, and at just the right time.

The film industry is aiming to revive in 2022, with theatrical business getting back to usual. In this scenario, it can be detrimental to announce the OTT release of a film merely 2-4 weeks after the big screen release.

While Bollywood films are still following the 4-week window between theatrical and OTT release, several south movies have been bringing their major releases to OTT just 2 short weeks after their theatrical arrival.

Simply put, this is short-sighted and only spells doom for the big-ticket pictures which need more time to achieve their full potential at the box office.

However, RRR wouldn’t have any of it.

With Jayantilal Gada picking up all rights of the film, he has decided that the S.S. Rajamouli directed RRR will first make its presence felt where it truly deserves to, i.e., on the big screen. Since he would be bringing the film to OTT as well as satellite TV in different languages, the window would open only 75-90 days after it has exhausted its theatrical business. The move is a step in the right direction as RRR is just the kind of big-ticket film that can bring people back in theatres across the country.

Also read: RRR trailer reaction: It's like 'two atom bombs exploded', say film fraternity

Of course, OTT played a major part to keep the ship afloat for the film industry in 2020 and 2021. If not for this medium, the industry could well have collapsed. However, now that it has done its job and in turn found a loyal audience for itself, one just waits for films to play where they were always meant to, i.e., the big screen.

Just imagine the kind of business Sooryavanshi could have done had it not been declared that it would arrive on Netflix just 4 weeks after its release. The Akshay Kumar and Rohit Shetty starrer has already done close to Rs195 crore business, and had the OTT release been pushed ahead by one or two months, it would have very comfortably gone past the Rs200 crore mark at the box office. In this case, there is a segment of audience that chose to wait and catch it on the small screen rather than going to theatres.

Ditto for Annaatthe which is a Rajinikanth movie - these are obviously best seen on the big screen. However, in case of this film, the challenges were even bigger. The film’s Netflix announcement came way in advance and the premiere on the digital platform happened barely two weeks after its theatrical release. Agreed that the film nosedived after its first week of collecting over Rs100 crore, but still it won’t be wrong to say that after the announcement, a segment of the audience chose to catch it on OTT rather than their movie watching habits and head to cinemas again.

Well, these habits will need to be changed all over again if the industry has to be revived. The moment it is announced that a film would be made available on the small screen in just 2-4 weeks post theatrical release, there is a segment of audience that makes its decision there and then. Yes, agreed that for the digital platforms too there is a minimum window in which they can make maximum profits. However, it’s a chicken and egg story and my take on these affairs is to not kill the golden goose while it’s laying eggs. It’s always better to make profits in a continued and consistent way rather than rushing it up and being left with no new content thereafter.

This is the reason why the move announced by the makers  of RRR is worth its weight in gold. When a big movie like this takes a hard call like this (Pen Movies and Rajamouli would have resisted a lot of temptation to bring on the film much earlier), other big ones can start thinking in that direction as well. For those where the rights have already been sold, one can’t expect them to get back to the table and renegotiate. However, I just wonder that if other major January and February releases like Radhe Shyam, Prithviraj, Attack, Major, Gangubai Kathiawadi, Vikrant Rona and Jayeshbhai Jordaar are yet to take that call, then they too should be reconsidering their stand and not arrive on OTT till they have spent at least eight weeks in theatres.

These films may or may not run in theatres for this long but at least set expectations with diehard movie fans that the wait would be this long and hence they need to take a call pronto on whether they wish to wait for 8 weeks or instead catch it in theatres instead.

Now that’s what would indeed keep the business flowing for the film industry as a whole, and turn out to be win-win for all.