Back in the day, going to the movies was a family experience—nothing short of a carnival. Everyone dressed in their best outfits, ready to be seated and entertained for the next two hours.
Before recliners, multiplexes, and e-tickets, films weren’t just movie nights—they were family nights.
The entire cinema hall—balcony and dress circle alike—shared the same experience of witnessing something larger than life. They laughed together, sobbed together, and whistled as Amitabh Bachchan threw punches at the bad guys. In those two hours, it didn’t matter where they came from, who they were, how they dressed, or how they spoke. The only thing that mattered was the big screen, and everyone’s eyes following the frame to catch every little detail the filmmaker offered.
Amidst that magnificent community experience, vendors shouted as they sold cola in glass bottles, samosas, cutlets, and popcorn, while children tugged at their parents, begging for snacks.
And before we knew it, single-screen theatres quietly gave way to big, air-conditioned multiplexes with recliner seats, fancy (and overpriced) popcorn, and an audience too “sophisticated” to whistle or cheer when the hero entered or the villain was defeated.
Nevertheless, the movie-going experience—despite the exorbitant prices—remained magical, if not quite the same as before.
Then came OTT platforms, with grand promises of changing the content landscape and turning it into something spectacular.
But the change was for the worse.
The community experience turned into isolated, individual ones. Theatres became living rooms, and flavourful snacks became microwave popcorn.
But that wasn’t even the biggest problem.
The bigger issue is the steep decline in the quality of films.
Mass entertainers are now created as money-making machines. Item songs are produced just to trend on reels, only to be forgotten days later.
OTT platforms that once promised to rejuvenate our film industry have turned it into a money-sucking black hole that occasionally spits out moments of creativity, rarely impressive, rarely memorable.
These platforms didn’t just kill creativity and the art of storytelling—they also destroyed affordable entertainment for an entire section of society by contributing to the death of single-screen theatres.
The same OTT platforms that once promised original content might just be the reason why we don’t have access to it anymore.
