Photo by Felix Mooneeram on Unsplash

COVID-19 - A curse to the Film industry:

On the evening of 24 March 2020, the Government of India ordered a nationwide lockdown for 21 days, limiting the movement of the entire 138 crore population of India as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 pandemic in India.

Due to the sudden stoppage of the movement, the people who connected with the industry started getting affected. Shooting got stopped, sets were closed and any outdoor activity got banned.

As stated by the Federation of Western India Cine Employees, greater than 250,000 workers, entertainers, makeup artists, set designers, carpenters, and backstage dancers have also been affected by the pandemic.

With the time, the Government started losing the belts to move forward to #newnormal. During this time many actors, directors, and casting team members were also got affected by the Virus. So, directly or indirectly people got hurt mentally as well as physically begin to think that will they be able to make a difference to attract the audience they used to do.

It is said to be that daily wage workers in the industry left their field forever due to pandemics.

“Thousands of screens countrywide are forced to close down. Even their supply chains and other stakeholders facing personal hardship, it is a tough state of affairs,” Gautam Dutta, CEO PVR Cinemas told RFI.

Not having enough human resources, less permission to shoot at places, having fear of getting infected every time, quarantined for half of a month, the industry began to work. The whole industry was waiting for getting leveraged by Government to run a show with 100% of occupancy in the cinema halls.

OTT - The Savior:

Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay 

There are major OTT platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+ Hotstar who are serving the national and international movies directly to the audience’s plates.

In the last 2 years, people are watching dramas, action, love stories, horror, and sci-fi in the form of web shows, and short films on their small screens. The audience directly compares those films with their national movies.

Indian audience stopped judging the movie by anyone’s nationality but to tried to watch in all the genre without knowing the actors previous work.

Hindi film viewers compare while watching any of the other movies and seek that magic from their regional films. As a results somehow makers got failed for the short time.

After fall back in theatre makers has to put their movies in the over-the-top (OTT) platforms. Because it provides them a slow but a steady revenue.

The major ingredients people wants are concept, characters, and story. Here, OTT is having the bunch of old and new movies, web-shows and even TV reality shows to give the audience a taste of all the genre continuously.

In major cities the cinema halls slowly got open and one by one the films got released in the multiplexes. With a lower audience theatre, owners run the shows.

The unlock process is placed in several states of India. Here, the much-awaited Rohit Shetty directed and Akshay Kumar starrer ‘Sooryavanshi’ was released and become the first Bollywood movie to enter the club of Rs 100 crore during the pandemic.

On the other side Rajinikanth sir starrer Annaatthe was released on Diwali time and eared Rs 150 crore only in Tamil Nadu and on 21st day the film brings the total of 239.21 crores.

And among these, Allu Arjun and Rashmika Mandana came up with their movie ‘Pushpa: The Rise’ which succeed to impressed the theatre audience across the India and internationally. As per the TOI report, The action drama has collected over Rs 365 crore gross at the worldwide box office in 50 days.

Tollywood believes in - Hit right, hit with full power, Hit ‘NOW’!

Southern film industry learns the people's mindset that without looking good, the normal person with no bigger background he or she can stand alone and become a hero in a crowd of thousands with their different strong thinking perceptions and with daring skills.

South industry made people realize that they can become a hero in their own lives and in this mean time of back-to-back hits Bollywood has not come up with such audience catchy movies.

The industry somehow changes people’s thinking in such a way that without seeing a superstar, a mid-budget movie or short film can be a super-hit. While, with the strong punch lines, super precisely written dialogues structure, well a selection of characters, VFX, and sound editing, the people who are witnessing in a row sitting in a chair will never get bored in a high budget fresh movie as well.

In short, the most important factor in South Indian cinema’s success is its production quality. Today, the most ambitious set pieces, the most thrilling action sequences, and the most breathtaking cinematography and sound in Indian cinema are found in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam films. The audience appreciates this.

KGF Chapter 2 – The game-changer:

The Game changer in the Indian industry.

When KGF-1 was released fewer audiences were excited and even lesser than that went to watch it on the big screens. The public started watching the film only after hearing the reviews of it by the media.

The rest audience who do not want to invest their money and time to see it forgot it. After sometimes the movie came up on the World TV Premier. BOOM!! People started loving the film. They released that miss the chance to watch KGF chapter -1 in theatre. Hence, they have to make up their mind and satisfy their heart to watch it on mobile or on laptop screens.

Now the people have attached to the story and actually want to see the next part by seeing the super dramatic climax of ‘death of the Garuda’. The director has a bigger picture in his mind that this film could not be completed in a single part and the second piece must come which he said in the interview.

Director said in an interview that when he was planning to make a movie his desired goal was to reach the creation to a wide audience in pan India.

KGF ch-1 was directed in only the Kannada language, and then dubbed many languages as per the massive public demand.

Now, the KGF – 2 is released in five different languages by five various film houses.

  1. Kannada - Hombale Films through KRG Studios and Jayanna Films
  2. Hindi - Excel Entertainment and AA Films
  3. Tamil - Dream Warrior Pictures
  4. Telugu - Varahi Chalana Chitram
  5. Malayalam - Prithviraj Productions

Only time will show us that will the game remain on one side or if the time itself would change the game.

.    .    .

Reference:

Discus