Putting together various reactions from various people in the Tamil film industry, from producers and established directors to newer filmmakers to trade analysts.
When the big news came, I can’t exactly say I was shocked. And one part of me was certainly excited that I’d finally watch this movie I’d been waiting for ever since I got an early copy of the script for feedback. It was a cracker, and I felt it could result in the transformation of Suriya back to the actor we knew and loved, as opposed to the star. The film (in my mind) felt classy, yet it was rooted, massy in a non-pandering way. It felt like something that could have taken Suriya down the Aamir Khan route. Plus, it felt like it would have given him the big hit he’s been after for a long time. But these are extraordinary times, which warrant extraordinary measures. And so we have ‘Soorarai Pottru’ landing up at our homes, around Deepavali.
I asked a bunch of people in the industry what they felt about the announcement, and this is the sense I got. They preferred to not be named, so I’ve paraphrased their observations as a series of points. Here goes…
So far, during the pandemic, the OTT space has become home for a variety of “small films”: the female-oriented film, the message-oriented film, the no-star-value film. But this was never going to make a difference in terms of subscriptions, so the major OTT players were after three biggies: Soorarai Pottru, Karthik Subbaraj’s Jagame Thandhiram (starring Dhanush), and the biggest biggie of them all, Lokesh Kanagaraj’s Master (starring Vijay).
In a statement, Suriya has clarified that this was a decision he made as a producer and not as an actor. So it’s a question of survival, how each individual producer sees himself holding on. It’s a state of mind. Let’s say you have a Rs. 40 crore loan, with mounting interest. Over the period of a few months, it’s bound to create a difference in deciding how long you want to play the when-will-theatres-open? waiting game.
Read the rest of this article here: https://www.filmcompanion.in/features/tamil-features/tamil-movies-suriya-sudha-kongara-soorarai-pottru-amazon-prime-video-the-impact-the-implications-baradwaj-rangan/
Copyright ©2020 Film Companion.
Baradwaj Rangan 
H. Prasanna
August 26, 2020
Technically, there has to be a lot of changes, I presume, if a movie has to go to OTT rather than theatres. I am excited to see if they make any changes in postproduction to Soorarai Pottru to cater to these new needs.
First thing that comes to mind is the music; how much louder it has become (the last movie I saw in theaters, Darbar, was unbearable). Will they mellow it down for the home? With the loss of revenue from music sales, big songs have become almost exclusively promotional tools. Will they save it for theaters and YouTube hits, and cut it out of the movie, if it serves no purpose to further the film’s narrative? Our big star movies are hardly musicals, many songs are non-sequitur.
In editing, how long will the pause for the hype shot last? In theaters, the shots “wait” for the claps, whistles, and comments. In an old interview, someone said MGR asked Vaali about the pauses and incomplete lines in “Naan Aanayittaal” and Vaali said “those are for the audience to shout back at the screen.” This was used in Gully Boy to great effect. When I watched Gully Boy, the audience shouted back “Apna Time Aayega” back at the screen. Will these decidedly theater moments be dropped/re-invented?
Currently, there is no regulatory body censoring OTT content. What will we see in Soorarai Pottru, that would have been cut in theaters? Will we see something that will propel this debate? In essence, will we see the director’s cut?
LikeLiked by 1 person
The16thShard
August 26, 2020
Terrific read with so many insights. The financials also make sense for all parties involved.
Assuming TN has a total of 100,000 subscribers (1/10th of Indian total) and the subscriber triples or quadruples, Amazon will end up pocketing an additional 30-40 Cr, which is the price being floated at which Amazon acquired the rights for the movie.
Considering the relatively low-budget for a big-star movie, the producers should also be happy to get a nifty profit, instead of holding out hope on the uncertain theater situation.
LikeLike
raghav
August 26, 2020
Somebody called Kamal Hasan wanted to disrupt theatrical release 7 years back…would have been a good time to stabilise by now
https://www.livemint.com/Consumer/j4gMydr6vEPUJ3gauMIxLP/Vishwaroopam-to-be-released-on-DTH-and-theatres-simultaneo.html
LikeLiked by 1 person
madhusudhan194
August 26, 2020
@H. Prasanna – Maybe that’s why it’s a late release even on OTT. I assume they would have edited it for theatrical release but an OTT release might demand a different cut. The trailer was delightfully profane and i hope the movie retains it.
LikeLike
H. Prasanna
August 26, 2020
@Madhusudhan19 It will be interesting to see how they play it. It is difficult for me to see which audience demographics will be the target for Amazon subscriptions. Generally, the target is the 18-35 demographic for big star projects. For OTT, it is kind of wide open. With no theatrical release, there is a chance they will try to appease all. And it may end up screwing with the film’s narrative style. Kind of like the star-driven OK, but not good enough, stuff Netflix serves for American audiences.
@Raghav Another related thing about a DTH release was the censorship of political content. Imagine watching the director’s cut of Vishwaroopam, or any of Kamal’s directorial ventures. I read “Amazon Prime deleted an entire “Madam Secretary” in its Indian version related to India occupied Kashmir. Hotstar deleted John Oliver’s episode on Modi. Netflix however did not succumb to deleting content when faced with similar pressures for Sacred Games.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Madan
August 26, 2020
“The worry is whether OTT may do to films what the Internet did to the music industry. ” – This is the most important part of the article for me, having seen the changes since the noughties. 99 was a peak year for the music industry by the way…riding on mostly rather mediocre albums. BSB, Ricky Martin, Britney, NSync. Santana’s Supernatural was the only good album in the top 10 for the entire year and these albums made a reasonably accomplished compilation of Latin-rock and fusion look like Dark Side of the Moon.
We may perhaps not notice the same phenomenon happening in the movies because this industry is inherently more brutal to smaller productions than the music industry was. If anything, before the arrival of illegal downloads, bands had started going DIY, putting together listenable demos with tape and handing them out at shows. Smaller labels could sign them up and, with luck, propel them to a big label trajectory. That path has always been much more difficult in the movies and it is not going to be made easier by OTT. When consolidation happens, it will be brutal. The cinema hall experience competing with OTT forced the latter to cater to niche audiences to maximise subscriptions. That is, people who want to watch visual spectacles on the big screen weren’t the target of Amazon or Netflix. But if theaters don’t open, they will be. And if OTT starts playing for the entire available audience (and they kind of already are), they will start veering towards big productions. Even more so, if anything, than cinema halls.
Of course, people can hope for competition and the other magic forces of the free market that we are given to understand were missing in action in the cinema hall model, but it is harder to make up revenue to buy films from subscriptions. Who are the ones successful in this business? Disney (no need to explain), Amazon (ditto) and Netflix (who already had a long innings as a successful DVD rental business before moving into, indeed creating subscription based OTT). Throw in Google which has been dabbling with Youtube originals. Again, deep pockets. Pockets so deep your Bhai gang and KJo Nepot Inc are no match for them. Ab ayega maza!
LikeLiked by 5 people
Aman Basha
August 26, 2020
@Madan: If there’s anything I have learnt from whatever I’ve seen in life, it is this: never underestimate the power of Bhai and his fans. The man can power trash like Race 3 to break even.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Madan
August 26, 2020
Aman: To be clear, I meant it more in a sense that “well, if you think the deep pockets of Bhai gang is bad, just wait till the big OTT players carve up the entire motion picture industry”.
LikeLike
vivaciously_yours
August 27, 2020
Interesting article with multiple viewpoints. Cinema halls has endured everything from World Wars, depression era, spanish flu, recessions and financial crisis, and has withstood cable era, handheld, and now subscription model and pay-per-view. I think 2020-2021 will be an asterisk period and will open up revised business models for the Entertainment Industry, but that is not going to end the theater-going experience. Movie theaters will learn to coexist with the OTT. The Gen Z-er and Millenials don’t invest in tangibles, they are all about experiences, and as long as Movie-going will give them a perceived value-add to them, they will continue to go, after this pandemic is behind us. They would go see a Marvel movie, F9 or a Bahubali which gives them a visual treat. Will a Rom-Com or a movie with an unknown star get the same turnover, probably not. But the movie-theater landscape is about to get altered to a great degree.
Take Trolls world tour for instance, Universal made nearly $100 Million in digital sales in 3 weeks(April 2020) without theaters and that is far more than what the original movie itself raked in theaters. The movie itself only made about $153M over a period of 5 months from all venues. AMC theaters retorted by saying it would stop screening movies produced by Universal studios. Disney is next in line with upcoming Mulan’s release at @$29 per view. In the short run with overhead costs, debt incurred by producers skyrocketing, and the shelf-life of the content(will it become stale), movie industry would be better off with OTT, but OTT isn’t going to be a large enough threat to extinct the theaters atleast in the next few years. It will become a novelty in our kid’s time.
Censorship in OTT: Tamil and Telugu Mass heroes have huge fan following, and stars like Vijay, Suriya have huge young fan following, they have all followed the McDonalds principle of “start young to have the loyalty and longevity of brand building”. When I saw the Soorai pottru trailer, as a parent, I am not sure I am going to watch this with my younger kid who loves Suriya movies for the language. If movies are going to follow a director’s cut, on those star value movies, I am not sure how many parents would be comfortable watching a movie with their children in their living room with no censorship for profanity or the visually mature content. I believe politically driven scenes will somehow find a way to the edit table even in democratic environment 🙂 I once saw a Matthew Mcconaughey interview where he said, “ I am finally in a movie that I can watch my movie with my own kids” about his movie Sing. I am not sure how big stars who still want to hold younger audience in their roster, balance their act in an OTT world.
Movies and cricket are two things inherently in us Indians, you can’t hold the people from going to the theaters after the pandemic is done, it still is one of the main sources of entertainment/outing for vast majority of families and watching a movie in Home Theater with popcorn or a samosa isn’t definitely going to replace whistling at the theaters, and yes never underestimate the power of our Khans, Vijays, or thalaivar 🙂 If anything, once we are back to the old way of living, 2021 summer(one can hope), there will be a sharp v-shaped spike in consumer spending including foot traffic to theaters and box office numbers.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Bala
August 27, 2020
I think this discussion is missing one key aspect. Amazon prime and Netflix are not just OTT platforms. They will soon become producers of movies. There are so many Amazon prime originals and netflix originals in English and even coming up in hindi. They are not just going after the theatre owners, they are after the producers themselves.
LikeLiked by 2 people
abishekspeare
August 27, 2020
I feel OTT can’t penetrate the middle/lower class no matter what film they buy. I live in chennai and come from a certain background but still am an ‘OC account’ holder and can’t think of shedding Rs.500+ per month.
OTT is also much more prone to piracy. In theatres you need to shoot the pirated copy using a camera so for the first 2 months all pirated copies are shit. This is not the case with OTT. You can find a version of equal quality an hour after a film drops.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Aman Basha
August 27, 2020
I don’t think when it comes to the South, OTT will make much of a difference. Firstly, it’s that mass masala films are still being made well and minting ridiculous amounts of money and also the sheer madness that comes as natural with these films, the whistles and screams. No matter how much money Netflix, Amazon and Google can pour from their pockets, can they give the dopamine surge when you’re sitting in a single screen watching a Rajni make his entry?
I’m sure people will run back to theaters once life comes back to normal and the demand will be for more escapism and masala. The South can amply satisfy that demand but up North, I have a feeling that South dubbed movies are going to take over single screens unless some of the older stars or a Ranveer Singh give out a good one.
LikeLike
V
August 28, 2020
Soorarai Pottru definitely had a very good pre-release talk. And Master definitely looks different from other Vijay movies, something on the lines of say, Nanban, where the expectations were more from the Director.
It is sad that both these movies have to make do with an OTT release. Somehow I feel Soorarai Pottru is a film meant for the big-screen. Not all films click on OTT – Viswasam was ok on a big-screen, but terrible to watch at home. Even Kaidhi, with its dark palette was a little less effective when watched on TV.
Also I dont understand Amazon’s gambit here – its potential audience for a classy Soorarai pottru, might already be on their platform, as it is bundled with their e-commerce unit too. Plus the tv channel also might want to release it during the lockdown phase to get a higher trp. But hey Im not complaining 🙂
I will watch it on day 1 though. The least I can do for a star, who has evolved a lot from his awkward Aval Varuvala aval varuvaaalaaa / Naa dum adikra style paathu days + puts his money where his mouth is + presents a film that looks interesting too!
LikeLike
kaizokukeshav
August 28, 2020
This seemed like Suriya is back into form even though this is not the family-friendly Suriya that we wanted to see. Personally I am intrigued by this movie and really hope Suriya will get back into his “comfort zone” which is … ‘outside the comfort zone’.
LikeLike
kaizokukeshav
August 28, 2020
@Madan: You are underestimating how heavy the pockets of Bollywood are, they may not buy the streaming companies but they can buy the artists and the internet providers.
LikeLike
Madan
August 28, 2020
kaizokukeshav: You have missed the context of my quip. I was referring to the pro-outsider crowd salivating at the prospect of using OTT to vault over Bhai gang, KJ etc. I am saying, well, yeah, and you are going to get into a bear hug with a bigger demon, so Godspeed. These are sharks who will engineer a bathtub drowning if they think the only way to salvage a write-off artist’s catalog is to kill her and profit off the ‘martyrdom’ upswing. So if people think Bhai gang was bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
LikeLike
Aman Basha
August 29, 2020
@Madan: I’m not aware about this bathtub reference, but for some reason, even OTT seems to be filled with muck and dump offs from KJo nepot Inc and other studios. At least Red Chillies makes an effort to be different but the rest seem to be using OTT as an dumping ground. The influence of studios and film makers on these platforms can’t be underestimated, after KJo had some couple making show on Netflix that no sane man woud greenlight. Even more importantly that an incomplete film like Drive was dumped on streaming, these platforms seem to be going the Hollywood studio way.
PS: Am I the only chuckling on the irony that Sadak 2 turned out to be so bad that it lived up to all those dislikes. And to imagine Hotstar paid 70 crore and included in that virtual conference while leaving out Khuda Haafiz and Lootcase, those movies actually turned out more successful.
LikeLike