Akhil Akkineni’s Agent, released last week, turned out to be an unmitigated disaster at the box office. The film was a disaster ride right from the word go and will be out of theaters within one week of its release.
Owing to such a poor performance at the box office, the film is all set to stream on OTT within 21 days on SonyLiv from May 19. Many films these days which had an underwhelming run at the box office are opting for an early release on OTT. Ravi Teja’s Ravanasura is another such example that made its OTT debut within three weeks.
Last year there was a hue and cry in Tollywood that films are being released on ott within a short period after their theatrical release, which is ruining the box office revenues. There were even strikes to oppose this practice.
A rule was passed that all Telugu movies will have to hold back on the OTT release for at least four weeks for small-budget movies and eight weeks for big star-studded movies from the theatrical release date.
Also, it was mentioned in the rule that no OTT/digital/satellite partner names should be mentioned before the start of any film in the theaters. Theater owners also demanded that the OTT partner name shouldn’t be displayed on the promotional material of the film.
But now the films are getting released on OTT in 2-3 weeks’ time, and no one seems to be opposing it, including the theater owners or exhibitors.
We had predicted then only that this kind of rule would not work in real-time. If a film flops badly and the producer is getting more money from digital rights for an early OTT release, why would he wait for 4 or 8 weeks? He would try to recover at least some losses by selling its OTT rights for an early premiere.
