Nothing succeeds like success. Nothing fails like failure either. The abject rejection of Salman Khan’s latest release Radhe by even his staunchest fans has left the film trade, specially the major OTT platforms, shell-shocked. They are wondering if there is any wisdom to paying huge amounts of money to buy out big-screen products with A-list superstars when they invariably prove to be duds on the digital domain.
An executive from a leading OTT platform told this writer there maybe a “blanket ban” on all big-screen premiers on the streaming platforms after Radhe.
“It’s not only Radhe which has been badly received on the digital platform. Prior to that other made-for-cinema products like Akshay Kumar’s Laxmii, Varun Dhawan’s Coolie No 1 and that Ishan Khattar-Ananya Pandey film(Kaali Peeli) which were all meant for cinemas, were rejected on OTT. Maybe it’s time now to see the digital platform as a separate entity with different requirements from the big-screen products. Although Dhamaka has a big A-list star Kartik Aryan in the lead, it has been specially designed for the digital space and not dragged down from the big screen to small. So that will work,” the digital executive opines.
The next big-screen project being negotiated for an OTT release is the Akshay Kumar-Rohit Shetty collaborative venture Sooryavanshi which may have to be sold at a much lower price than expected after the cold response to Radhe.