Priyadarshan’s Hungama Sold To Disney-Hotstar At A Mere 30 Crores

Gone are the  days when  OTT platforms fell over one  another in pursuit  of big-budgeted  Bollywood big-screen  projects. Disney-Hotstar apparently  cut a very  hard  deal with  producer Ratan Jain before purchasing  his  new production a riotous  comedy  Hungama 2 .

An informed source reveals, “They(the  Hungama  producer Ratan Jain)  actually asked for a lot more, considering  director Priyadarshan’s first Hungama was  a hit. But that  was  18 years  ago. Today’s generation has moved on. Also, the  film has no face value(big stars). Not that stars  sell films on the OTT, the content does.”

Lately the  OTT platforms have begun to  exercise extreme caution about purchasing feature  films.

Says   the same  source, “Disney-Hotstar paid a massive  90 crore rupees  for  David Dhawan’s  Coolie No 1  and  it  was  a disaster. They’ve paid much less for Hungama 2. The star cast has no A-listers. Unless one considers Paresh Rawal and Shilpa Shettu to be stars.”

Apparently A-listers gracing the  digital space  is no more a reason to rejoice. The digital world has given  opportunities for a  huge  bank of  untapped talent to emerge,  from Harshvardhan Rane and  Pulkit Samrat in Taish to Jaideep Ahlawat  and Abhishek Bannerjee  in  Pataal Lok to  Pratik Gandhi in Hansal Mehta’s Scam  1992 to  Surya Sharma  in Undekhi .