It has been a long wait for filmmakers and producers, but cinemas show no signs of reopening in India. Now, like Hindi movies, markets are also taking the OTT direct route.
The Bengali film industry is joining the trend of direct virtual premieres. SVF Entertainment, which is one of the leading media and entertainment corporations in eastern India, skips the movie theater premiere of its new Corporate Detective. The film will be released directly on August 14 at Hoichoi, a Bengali OTT service.
In a verbal exchange with Moneycontrol, Vishnu Mohta, co-founder of Hoichoi, said: “This (first digital) will have a wonderful taste over how other people will see OTT. There will be new people coming and existing consumers will get new content. Although I’m completely a movie premiere, lately it’s a smart choice. Small movies now have a fair output thanks to OTT. Even consumers get advantages because now they can’t stop in theaters, so how can they consume movie content? . »
Hoichoi, the era of lockout, saw the accumulated traffic two to three times a day. In the past he had stated that the paid subscription on the platform had increased fivefold.
But what do you think of SVF since Hoichoi is a subsidiary of SVF?
Mahendra Soni, co-founder and director of SVF explains: “Hoichoi is a wholly owned subsidiary of SVF, but the two corporations paint independently. Therefore, for the titles of our library, there is an agreement. There is a value That Hoichoi will pay SVF.”
But as a producer, do you have a virtual premiere?
“It’s a threat relief company for me. In the case of a movie theater premiere, there is the possibility of letting it pass. I can also earn 4 times more than the cash invested and lose 50% of my investment. But here (OTT), the threat is less and we would possibly get an accumulation of between 40 and 50% each and we would increasingly profit from other platforms/flows such as television, music and even theater. So I see this as a major proposal from the point of view of SVF. We see this as a new opportunity and we can’t compare it to a movie premiere,” Soni said.
It also suggests that films that first premiere on OTT can be released in theaters at the opening. There will be a shortage of content when theatres resume their activities, he stressed.
“In addition, in our case, we are a gated community. So there’s an audience that can see the film in theaters,” Soni added.
Speaking about the Bengali movie market, Soni said it would be the one that would have the most films waiting for release.
“There are more than 40 films shot and in a position to be released. However, the challenge is that national actors such as Disney Hotstar, Amazon Prime Video and Netflix have not opened up to Bengali films. As a result, Bengali manufacturers still don’t have a selection to wait for the cinemas to reopen.”
Regarding the SVF films, Soni said they were willing to do it with all platforms.
“We work strongly with many OTT platforms. We have agreements with Amazon Prime Video. So I’m open to any kind of business,” he says.
As for Hoichoi, the platform is also interested in production films.