7 Indian movies are bypassing theatres to premiere on Amazon Prime

[Navjot Singh]

Amazon Prime Video to globally premiere 7 Indian movies as theaters remain closed | TechCrunch

Amazon has secured rights to premiere seven Indian movies that were initially scheduled for a theatrical release directly on its Prime Video on-demand

techcrunch.com

The e-commerce giant, which is reportedly in talks to buy AMC theater chain, said on Friday that it will release these movies, which include “Gulabo Sitabo” starring Indian legend Amitabh Bachchan and Ayushmann Khurrana, and “Shakuntala Devi” featuring Vidya Balan as lead, over the next three months starting with May.

Prime Video subscribers won’t have to pay an additional fee to access these movies, which span five Indian languages, the company said. Other “highly anticipated” titles are Tamil drama “Ponmagal Vandhal,” “Penguin” (Tamil and Telugu), “Law” (Kannada), “French Biryani” (Kannada), and “Sufiyum Sujatayum” (Malayalam).

 

[Sushubh]

i am kind of impressed that none of these services have till now decided to launch a pay per view model for this content. maybe soon.

i mean the two hindi movies on the list have good casting. they might have even crossed 100 crores on the box office during normal times. but how many movies would Amazon keep on purchasing and keep adding it to prime with no extra incentive. prime video especially has least incentive to add expensive content but i guess amazon ke paas bahut paisa hai.

 

[Navjot Singh]

It appears that Amazon hasn’t had to spend a ton to acquire rights for these titles. In an interview with Huffington Post India, Ronnie Lahiri, co-producer of “Gulabo Sitabo” said “it wasn’t like we got insane money from Amazon” though he called the deal a “win-win.”

Pay per view model is live on iTunes and Google Play Store but I wonder how many people do buy from them? Or maybe they don't need to because half of its on streaming and for the rest we are expert in pirating?

I mean before music streaming sites came, how many people were buying albums or songs from Google Play music or iTunes? I never thought of doing myself.

 

[Sushubh]

yeah i guess no incentive. once the movie is out on the web, torrents basically appear within a few hours.

these are not huge movies. if theaters do not open for a year from now on...

i do wonder what percentage of prime subscribers subscribe because of prime videos as most important reason and not prime shopping