Relax, Netflix Is No Threat To Movie Theatres

 The 17 new  films and series announced  on  July  16  by Netflix  has nothing  as grandly showy  as the big-screen  blockbusters to pose  a threat to the survival  of  movie theatres.

 Nothing like the Hollywood biggies like Chris Hemsworth’s  Extraction,Tom Hanks’  Greyhound or Charlize Theron’s  The Old Guard here,unless we count  the  bio-pic Gunjan Saxena  with  Sridevi’s daughter  Janhvi playing an airforce pilot,  which ideally would have  gone on  the  big screen.

 Having said  that, most  of  Netflix’s new acquisitions are  films that  have been ready for more than a year, sometimes  two years and more, with no exhibitors coming forward  to buy them. These  include  the Nawazuddin-Radhika Apte crime thriller  Raat Akeli Hai,  Konkona Sen-Bhumi Pednekar’s Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare, Yami Gautam-Vikrant Massey(hardly Katrina Kaif-Akshay Kumar)’s  Ginnny Weds Johnny and Renuka Shahane’s  directorial  debut  Tribhanga: Tedhi Meri Crazy(featuring Kajol and Tanvi Azmi, the latter stepping into  her sister-in-law Shabana Azmi’s  place).

As a head honcho of  a leading multiplex chain who doesn’t want to be named, points out, “None  of  these titles would have worked  in  the  theatres anyway. Most of Netflix’s  new  purchase  would have gone to the  OTT platform  by default. The films like Class Of  83 and  AK Versus AK(featuring the two acting  stalwarts Anil Kapoor and Anurag Kashyap  the Marlon Brando and  Robert de Niro  of  Bollywood) are made for the OTT platform. The rest like  A  Suitable Boy  and Masaba Masaba are series. So I say, everything is  happening for  the  best.”

If  we are  to have  the digital  domain to co-exist with  cinema then this is to for  both platforms  to  chalk out their territory. A  a  hit is  a  hit on any medium.  Likewise  a flop is  flop no matter what  the size  of  the screen. Gulabo Sitabo proves it.