Amid lockdown, cinema halls stare at the fear of OTT taking over

With cinema halls shut and film releases suspended amid the nation-wide lockdown, theatre owners battle fears that the digital platforms might end up changing the collective movie watching experience, resulting in a dent in the footfalls whenever the screens open up again.

India is currently under the 21-day lockdown with around 1.3 billion people asked to stay home in view of the coronavirus outbreak, which has infected over 2,300 people in the country as of Friday while the death toll rose to 56, according to the Union Health Ministry.

Bihar-based exhibitor Vishek Chauhan said with everyone quarantined, digital platforms are "taking us by the throat and pushing down their content every week."
The exhibitor, who runs Roopbani Cinema in Purnea, Bihar, believes the comfort that the OTT platforms offer; pose a threat to the theatrical viewing experience because it's an "antithesis to appointment cinema."
"Theatrical viewing is fixed at a particular time, a location, which isn't the case with OTT. You can watch unlimited content online using free data. This is a huge crisis we will face. It's not like the gates will open and people will throng our premises."
"Imagine if I were Netflix or Amazon and made an offer to the makers of 'Sooryavanshi' to release it digitally, paying whatever amount they think they could've earned in a theatrical, how long will Karan Johar, Rohit Shetty hold back?
"Irrespective of the coronavirus scenario, the differentiation between what goes on OTT and theatrical was already in place. Movies like 'Maska' or 'Guilty' wouldn't have had too much draw on the theatrical front anyway. But if you bring a tentpole film like 'Sooryavanshi', 'RRR' to the OTT, people wouldn't enjoy it half as much as they do in a theatrical format."