Bringing Back the Popcorn: Is the future of Indian Films in OTT or the Theatre?
The OTT vs. theatre competition isn’t a challenge but a delightful opportunity, writes Sanchit Gupta. We can have the best of both worlds: both the mediums need equal space to grow where different films with different objectives can find their home.
During a recent dinner-table conversation, a renowned film producer told me that 2020 has been the best year for films. Everyone at the table was surprised. 2020? The supposed apocalyptic year? The year we all stayed at home in our pajamas to be rendered global superheroes? That 2020?
He saw the dumbstruck look on our faces and explained, Of course, you see: No film has flopped in the year 2020.
Aha, the hidden light bulb inside all our heads suddenly lit up. No film has released in theatre for most of the year, and hence, no film has really flopped. Ladies and gentlemen, everything on an Over The Top (OTT) platform—from Ludo to Sadak 2—can be claimed as a hit.
The above may be a slight exaggeration; and yet, it raises questions that everyone remotely related to the film world—from the filmmakers to the audiences—have been trying to answer: What is the future for films in OTT? What is the future for traditional theatres?
To begin with, OTT has really and truly democratised the idea of story-telling, and done so in a revolutionary way that the industry badly needed. Earlier, when a film would release in theatres alone, the medium meant it faced roadblocks in two very significant aspects: its reach, and the quality of storytelling.
OTT has really and truly democratised the idea of story-telling, and done so in a revolutionary way that the industry badly needed. Earlier, when a film would release in theatres alone, the medium meant it faced roadblocks in two very significant aspects: its reach, and the quality of storytelling.
Reach is obvious. In a cinema hall, limited screens and limited shows means limited people can watch the film. Add to that the upkeep cost of running a theatre—no wonder PVR’s main business now is popcorn! For the OTTs, on the other hand, at barely ₹100 a month, everyone who can own a ₹5000 cellphone can watch Akshay Kumar’s latest, whenever and wherever they want. No pre-bookings, no getting ready, no need to invest a whole evening and your child’s monthly school fees to watch a movie. Utopia. Isn’t it?
The second, more layered, but more compelling aspect is the quality of storytelling. From purely a business perspective, success for a producer means making more money than that invested. Keeping the money earned from music or digital rights aside, the key component for that would be the box office figures.
In the box office, too, it is not the absolute number, but the relative number viz-a-viz the film’s budget that is important. A movie theatre, which is the distribution partner, would broadly take 50% of the revenue earned, leaving the producer with the remaining 50%. Which means, for example if a film is made on a ₹10 crore budget (including promotions)—the bare minimum for a good quality low budget movie these days—it needs to crack a box office of ₹20 crore to break even.
And to crack a 20 crore, you need a good opening, and for that you need a face. A face that either has a proven track record of success or is either highly recognisable. For the former, it is the reason a film by Khans or Ajay/Akshay get high box office openings. Nowadays, a film with an actor like Ayushmann Khurrana, Kartik Aaryan, or Rajkummar Rao would open at around a 10-crore level, too. This is why it’s often that a ‘star kid’ gets cast for many roles, because more people may be familiar with someone like an Ananya Pandey over a Shweta Tripathi. Hence, no matter how much the audience shouts nepotism, they will go to watch the former’s movie, and maybe not the latter.
Because of this skewed need to ‘have a face’ and generate a minimum revenue, the actor becomes the pivot around which the movie business operates, especially for the theatres. To give the movie a theatrical scale, a minimum production and promotion budget is required, too. Therefore, a film featuring a new actor or new director, or with unknown names with relatively lower budgets, will not get a theatrical release altogether—leave alone any recognition. For example, a film about the issue of balding hair, Gone Kesh, starring Shweta Tripathi, was released long before Ayushmann Khurrana’s Bala—and yet, most of the mainstream audiences only know of the latter.
OTT is changing things. Here, budgets and actors are not a dependency. A wonderful case in point is Lootcase, starring Kunal Khemu, which was a film released in summer 2020 during the pandemic on Disney+ Hotstar. It is a film made by a debutante director (Rakesh Krishnan), with a lesser-known lead actor (Kunal Khemu).
It is likely that many reading this column may not have heard of Khemu before Lootcase. Without an OTT platform supporting it, a film like with low ‘face value’ would have hardly gotten a theatrical release, or one only to limited screens and small audiences. Because of OTTs, however, Lootcase got a level playing field as other higher-profile movies released during the pandemic, such as Laxmmi Bomb or Gulabo Sitabo. And, with good storytelling, Lootcase garnered much more acclaim from the viewers. It doesn’t have box office numbers to show for its triumph, but the inexistence of that medium during these times has been the very reason for its success.
In a nutshell, OTTs have helped more quality content find its way to the audience. Oscar-winning Mexican film Roma is a beautiful example of this, as are films closer to home like Raat Akeli Hai or Serious Men. These are films that carved a niche of their own, entertained audiences, and boosted the careers of those involved—all because they weren’t dependent on a theatre.
Does it mean that it is now time to close the proverbial curtain over a movie theatre? To embrace the home couch like our stairway to cinematic haven?
Flip the coin, however, and you begin to see a completely contrasting picture.
Theatres are not just showing us a film—they can often be a means towards a magical evening. They are the mediums of a wholesome experience. Lovers and dating couples, a husband and wife with their kids, a group of friends from college, an elder couple in a small town, families on a Diwali vacation—the theatre experience for all are less about the film, and more about a way to come together and bond.
During the pandemic, those who attended the theatres solely for the movie may not have missed the cinema hall that much. But for those missing the overall experience, the times of ‘normalcy’ couldn’t come any sooner. For how long can one go to parks or lakes and sea-faces for an evening out? Theatres are the backbone of the Saturday evening, a way for the family to enjoy the weekend together, an escape from the mundane throughout the week. And that is something no home couch can fulfill, no matter how big a screen one puts up.
From the perspective of the filmmaker, theatres are a major source of revenue that the they have begun to miss. No matter how much we crib about the box office pressure on filmmakers, a good film can also benefit from its word-of-mouth promotion. For example, Hindi Medium gave the late Irrfan Khan his first true Bollywood blockbuster, and made the offbeat artist into a bona-fide star. Jolly LLB gave Arshad Warsi his most prominent solo lead role, and visibility that wouldn’t have been possible for him on OTT. Taking a cue from the Lootcase example above, even though it is OTT that gave it its wings, the producer, director, and actor would have all wondered how much the positive buzz around the film would have translated into the box office.
Theatres are the backbone of the Saturday evening, a way for the family to enjoy the weekend together, an escape from the mundane throughout the week. And that is something no home couch can fulfill, no matter how big a screen one puts up.
The second related aspect is the ‘weighted reach’. Like in sales and distribution of any other product, a film’s reach too can be measured on two distribution metrics: normal and weighted. Normal reach is the total absolute number of ‘screens’ it is possible to screen the film. Here, OTT has a clear advantage.
But if you look at the weighted reach, or the ‘quality of viewing’ each screen provides, then OTT begins to lag behind. One is the obvious scale factor: large-scale Hollywood films such as No Time To Die or an Avengers film would be wasted on the small screen, wouldn’t they? But even more pertinent for both audiences and filmmakers, is the ‘continuous viewing experience’ factor. In an OTT platform, the viewer has a choice to pause the film, come back a few hours later, and maybe even skip a few parts. Although this choice sounds great, it often tends to devoid the viewer from the movie experience he would have had if the choice did not exist. Imagine, for example, watching a film like Shawshank Redemption or Life of Pi on your TV screen: the way these films gradually grow and get under your skin, the freedom to have a pause button would never have let you reach the experience that continuous viewing would have given.
For a filmmaker, this is their worst fear. It is the reason Christopher Nolan remained hell bent on releasing Tenet in theatres, even though it continued to suffer losses. Stanley Kubrick would roll in his grave if someone told him that one could pause The Shining mid-way to leave the immersive experience for a snack or to watch a sitcom!
And herein lies the irony of the whole argument between OTTs and theatres. New talent and new films that push the boundaries need OTTs to survive, but those very films and talents have to then look at theatres to actually thrive.
What we need to do is not look it the OTT-theatre competition at as a challenge, but as a delightful opportunity. We have today the best of both worlds: both the mediums need equal space to grow where different films with different objectives can find their home, just like how the mediums of news-media can find different homes and audiences in newspapers, digital and podcasts. A film like Roma that needs more artistic freedom will revel at Netflix, while films like Sooryavanshi or ‘83 that must get audiences in hordes will succeed at the theatre.
As an audience, with all five of your fingers dipped and rolled in ghee, you surely don’t want to miss out on both options. So, binge on your OTTs, but when the next film releases on theatres, wear your masks, apply hand sanitizer, maintain social distance, and go enjoy the big screen. Help it survive.
And on that note, I have a brainwave: perhaps after the vaccine, we need to introduce special whistles that can be blown while keeping the masks on—that way, we will truly recreate the experience of a hall again, singing and dancing at the theatres in true Indian cinema tradition!
Till then, happy viewing.
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Sanchit Gupta is a brand manager turned author, screenwriter, adman and columnist. His book The Tree With a Thousand Apples was longlisted at Sundance Screenwriters’ Lab and Rabindranath Tagore Literary Award. He has written movies and web series for reputed production houses like Excel Entertainment, RSVP Movies, Applause Entertainment and Prakash Jha Pictures. He can be reached at Twitter: @sanchit421 and Instagram: @sanchit421.
