Bollywood, Reeling From the Pandemic, Shifts to Streaming

Even as the government reopened theaters in October, PVR Cinemas, the country’s largest multiplex chain, reported a net loss of 184 crore rupees, or about $25 million, for the quarter that ended in September, because of the lack of new movies.

“Our revenues are abysmal because we’re still an incomplete offering,” said Ajay Bijli, the chairman and managing director of PVR Ltd., which has laid off nearly 30 percent of its employees. “It’s like having a restaurant with no food.”

The shutdowns have also forced some single-screen theaters to close permanently, which may mean less access to cinema experiences for much of India’s working class and rural populations.

All of this is making it easier for streaming services to land new movies, even with some theaters reopened. There is “an opportunity to get recent theatrical releases within four to eight weeks of their release, depending on language, to a large set of customers,” said Vijay Subramaniam, the director and head of content for Amazon Prime Video India.

The investments by streaming services in Bollywood content have also led to a surge of creativity. Instead of the usual romantic or action-hero films with all-star casts, more shows and movies are now centered on women, war and other topics, analysts said. More than half the Netflix films released in India this year were from a female producer or director, the company said, and more than half of its Indian films and series have women as central characters.

“That sort of lowest common denominator or one-size-fits-all content strategy is now slowly fading out,” said Vikram Malhotra, the producer of “Shakuntala Devi.” “People are demanding more nuanced, more intellectually relevant content. These stories need to mean something now.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/technology/coolie-no1-bollywood-streaming.html