Sai Pallavi’s Ek Din turned out to be a complete disaster at the box office. Despite being backed by Aamir Khan Productions and starring Junaid Khan alongside Sai Pallavi, the romantic drama failed to attract audiences. Its Telugu dubbed version, Oka Roju, performed even worse.
Normally, a theatrical flop gets a second chance on OTT, where word of mouth can help it reach a wider audience. But Ek Din‘s digital strategy is raising more questions than excitement. The film has quietly arrived on Amazon Prime Video, but surprisingly, it isn’t available for streaming in India at all. That itself is baffling because India is the biggest market for any Hindi film.
The overseas strategy is even stranger. Instead of being included with a regular Prime subscription, the film has been released only on a rental basis. Even existing Prime members have to pay extra to watch it. That raises an obvious question: if audiences didn’t spend money on the film in theatres, how many will now pay an additional rental fee to watch a disaster on OTT?
Rental releases usually work for blockbuster films, premium early premieres, or movies with huge demand. Ek Din fits none of those categories. After a disastrous theatrical run, the logical strategy would have been to make the film easily accessible and hope it finds a new audience through streaming. Instead, the makers have put another paywall in front of viewers.
For Sai Pallavi‘s fans, the situation is particularly disappointing. Many skipped the film in theatres expecting to catch it on OTT. But now, they can’t watch it in India at all, while viewers overseas have to pay extra despite already subscribing to Prime Video.
This could simply be a temporary rental window before the film becomes available as part of the regular Prime subscription. After all, it is hard to believe the makers genuinely expect audiences to keep paying to rent a film that was rejected in theatres.
Instead of maximizing its reach after a box-office disaster, the makers have chosen a strategy that could limit its audience even further.
