Kangana Ranaut’s latest movie Thalaivi set for television release by Zee Cinema on Christmas. The movie by AL Vijay is based on the life of actress turned politician J Jayalalitha.
The movie was released this September in Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu bagging 55 crore rupees for digital streaming rights for the movie that cost around 40-45 crore rupees.
It chronicles the life of a late actress-politician, lovingly referred to as ‘amma’ by her cadre. She was the general secretary of the Anna DMK party and served as the chief minister of Tamil Nadu for over fourteen years.
She also holds the title of having been the youngest chief minister of Tamil Nadu when she took the post in 1991, at the age of 43.
Although the movie was released in theatres, two of the biggest multiplex chains in the country, PVR Cinemas, and INOX Leisure Ltd, refused to screen the Hindi version of the movie due to the narrow window left for the OTT release in Netflix. The Hindi version procured around 1.46 crores in theatres.
While Netflix premiered the Hindi version, Amazon Prime Video acquired the digital streaming rights for the Tamil and Telugu versions. Netflix premiered the movie within 14 days of the theatre release, whereas Amazon waited a month while the Tamil and Telugu versions played in multiplexes.
The second wave of Covid resulted in the spike of television movie channel viewers by 10%-20% as more people stayed at home. The satellite premiere of many films, especially in the south, post their theatre releases surely played a hand in this.
Many broadcasters also revealed that small town massy audiences and village audiences have not yet shifted to OTT (Over The Top) platforms to fulfill their entertainment requirements. The scarcity of other options also obtained considerable success, in the case of numbers, for direct television releases such as Laxmii starring Kiara Advani and Akshay Kumar.
As per a recent Ficci-EY report, broadcast rights fell 68% in 2020 due to the fewer number of television premieres. The impact on advertising and subscription revenues may also have played a role.
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