Coolie No. 1 there are all the hallmarks of a great Bollywood film: colorful costumes, larger-than-life sets, step-by-step music and a melodramatic story about a man who pretends to be a couple to raise the woman of his dream.
After a wrapped shoot in February, the film was released for a play in May. But when Coolie No. 1 finally reaching screens on Christmas Day, it will not appear in any of India’s 3,000 theaters. Instead, it appears on Amazon’s streaming service.
“I make films for the theater, but this time there was no way to do that,” said director David Dhawan.
After the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and the closure of movie theaters, the wait for a theatrical debate became very attractive, he said. So a contract to send the film to Amazon after it was released moved to a direct streaming plan.
“It’s a compromise, for sure,” said Dhawan, who has a film as a remake of the 1995 blockade of the same name that he also directed. “But at least my film is releasing. ”
Coolie No. 1 just one of the Bollywood films – the shorthand for the nearly $ 2.5 billion Hindi film industry in India – that has moved towards streaming in a year spent with the pandemic. In total, 28 Bollywood features led by big stars went to theaters to stream instead, compared to none last year, according to research firm Forrester.
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Among them were Situlao Gulabo, a dark comedy by former actor Amitabh Bachchan, and Shakuntala Devi, a biopic of the Indian mathematician, both of which began streaming on Amazon in July. Something else, Laxmmi, a comedy drama by Akshay Kumar, was released in November on Disney’s streaming service, Hotstar.
This trend is similar to Hollywood, where the pandemic has caused studios to push back plays for many films and, in some cases, toward streaming as part of a first run. In September, Disney went off Mulan on Disney +. Last month, Warner Bros. said. that he would let it out Wonder Woman 1984 on HBO Max and in theaters at the same time on Christmas Day. The studio later announced that it would stream its 17 2021 films to streaming and theaters at the same time.
The number of Bollywood films that rely on streaming is just a small part of what the industry does. Last year, Bollywood made more than 1,800 films, or an average of 35 a week, and domestic theater releases generated more than $ 1.5 billion in revenue, according to a report by Ernst & Young.
But the pandemic-spurious move toward streaming is unparalleled, said Bollywood producers, filmmakers and experts.
Netflix, Amazon and Hotstar have all invested in India, one of the fastest growing internet marketplaces in the world. The companies, which together have paid tens of millions of Indian subscribers, have poured in billions of rupees to produce edgy, Indian-specific original content in several regional languages. . In 2020, they spent nearly $ 520 million to create content for an Indian audience, nearly $ 100 million more than in 2019, according to Forrester.
Netflix said it had invested around $ 400 million to create more than 50 films and shows in India over the past two years. Of these, 34 were original films in Hindi language.
“The current environment has given us some opportunities to add to our film slate, including some of the films that our members would have had on the service after theater release, ”Netflix said in a statement. She said he “strongly believed in original films for the service, and we are investing in it.”
Disney + also launched in India during the lockout in April, joining Hotstar, one of the largest platforms in India. (Disney bought Hotstar in March 2019 as part of their $ 71 billion deal to acquire Twenty-First Century Fox, which owned Star India, then parent company Hotstar.) The merger gives paid subscribers access to the India access to Disney library of global content.
Avoiding theaters is a big move for Bollywood. The Indian film industry has long relied almost exclusively on theater calls for revenue. But when the film theater pandemic fell into disrepair, revenues fell by as much as 75%, according to estimates by analysts at KPMG.
Even when the government opened theaters in October, PVR Cinemas, the country ‘s largest multipurpose chain, reported a net loss of 184 crore rupees, or about $ 25 million, for its ‘which ended in September, due to a lack of new films.
“Our revenue is solid because we remain an incomplete offer,” said Ajay Bijli, chairman and managing director of PVR Limited, which has laid off nearly 30% of its employees. “It’s like a restaurant without food.”
The closures have led to the permanent closure of some single-screen theaters, which may mean less access to cinema experiences for much of India’s working class and rural populations.
All of this makes it easier for streaming services to land new films, even with some theaters reopening. “There is an opportunity to get recent plays within four to eight weeks of their release, depending on language, to a large set of customers,” said Vijay Subramaniam, director and head of content for Amazon Prime Video India.
The investments by streaming services in Bollywood content have also led to increased creativity. Instead of the usual romantic or heroic action movies with star legs, more shows and movies are now based on women, war and other themes, analysts said. More than half of the Netflix movies released in India this year were from a female producer or director, the company said, and more than half of the Indian films and series have women. them as main characters.
“The lowest type or type of content strategy that is suitable for all is now slowly disappearing,” said Vikram Malhotra, producer of Shakuntala Devi. ”“ People want content that is more interesting and relevant to understanding. Those stories have to mean something now. ”
Dhawan, director Coolie No. 1, said there was still a desire for big, colorful, melodramatic love stories to flow.
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“Every time, I think I make a different kind of film,” he said. “It simply came to our notice then. They come back to this great atmosphere; they laugh; they like the sounds; they dance. ”
And Sara Ali Khan, who plays the romantic interest, said she was just as eager Coolie No. 1 to start streaming as in theaters.
“The excitement and anxiety before the film was released is still there,” she said.