With the Covid-19 pandemic now being a regular part of life, the film industry needed to re-look at its delivery mechanism and with the decision to digitally release Gulabo Sitabo, Shoojit Sircar has stepped into the breach, writes Gautam Chintamani
It is not every day when one of cinema’s most iconic names features in a film that premieres in the confines of your living room. Or right in your palm on your cellular phone screen. The news of Shoojit Sircar’s new film Gulabo Sitabo with screen-legend Amitabh Bachchan and one of the brightest sparks in Hindi movies today, Ayushmaan Khurrana, ‘dropping’ on Amazon Prime Video instead of releasing at a theatre near you was greeted with an expected mix of enthusiasm and disdain. For the ticket-paying audience that had begun to show signs of taking a keener interest in material that was being given a pass by popular films in India, this was the logical step. But for theatre-owners and multiplex chains the move was nothing less than an indication that the ground beneath their feet had shifted. This development might be kind courtesy the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic that has changed how we knew life but this was waiting to happen.
In the recent past, the way films were being consumed had changed with audiences willing to paying a subscription fee to online streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video to get what it wanted. The means of producing films, too, had undergone a massive transformation with the digital format replacing film across most industries but one only aspect of the entire chain remained largely the same — exhibition. In 2017, Netflix’s Bright featured Will Smith, one of the biggest box office stars in the world, and the writing was clear on the wall the moment it skipped the traditional theatrical release. Cinema viewing experience was poised to change. In India, this moment seems to have arrived with the announcement of Sircar’s Gulabo Sitabo’s online premiere. This was the first time that an A-list Hindi film would debut outside a movie hall and the reaction from the theatre owners indicates just how this one small step for a filmmaker could well be the one giant leap for films. Leading cinema hall owners called the move a ‘mistake’ and the INOX multiplex chain expressed “extreme displeasure and disappointment”, and said that it will take “retributive measures in dealing with such fair-weather friends.”
Owing to a nation-wide lockdown several ready for release films were put on hold, while the trade went into a huddle to decide how to deal with the new normal. Initially, most producers believed that rescheduling the release dates would resolve their predicament. Nearly everyone was convinced that such measures would suffice. A few weeks later, the speculation that all the changes were nothing more than temporary measures changed when the fear that cinema halls might not operate to full capacity any time soon pushed the trade to start exploring other forms of distribution besides the traditional theatrical release. The focus of the powers be of the film business when it came to thinking of new mechanism to showcase films (read OTT) was largely on the two tentpole films that were all set to hit the screens when life collided with the harsh reality of Covid-19 — Rohit Shetty-directed and Akshay Kumar starrer cop-drama Sooryavanshi and Kabir Khan’s 83 that chronicled the story of the 1983 Cricket World-Cup winning Indian squad with Ranveer Singh portraying the legendary Kapil Dev.
This was not the first time when things had come to such a pass in the film industry. A few years ago, Kamal Haasan toyed with the idea of releasing Vishwaroopam on the DTH platform the same day as the film was supposed to hit the cinema halls. As expected, there was a furore by the theatre owners, who also threatened to boycott future Kamal Haasan films if the thespian went ahead. The reason that Haasan perhaps considered the option might have to do with the potential ruffling of feathers that Vishwaroopam seemed capable of after some key scenes were objected to based on them probably hurting religious sentiments. Finally, Haasan did not go-ahead and the decision to release films featuring reigning superstars on platforms other than cinema halls was pended. There were rumours that Haasan had gotten an internal survey done and the numbers did not predict the reality he had envisioned in terms of the film’s box office collections.
The setting was rife with speculation as both film producers and OTT platforms were on the lookout for avenues and ways that would retain the viewer. While films could still play the waiting game, in the manner of speaking, streaming platforms needed to ‘up the game’ as the platform gained greater significance in the times of the lockdown where the viewing habits of people underwent a further transformation. Thanks to their deep pockets, OTT platforms could easily get films packed with prestigious names on their roster. For a brief period, the grapevine was abuzz with Akshay Kumar’s other film, Lakshmi Bomb, slated to release on 22 May, becoming the first ‘big’ film to release exclusively on a streaming platform with rumours afloat that Disney+ and Hotstar VIP had picked it up for its premium subscribers. Made on an approximate budget of Rs 88 crore, Lakshmi Bomb was delayed in post-production due to the lockdown and the producers expected it to be ready for online release by June end. The buzz only increased after the word got out that Kabir Khan had reportedly been offered a whopping amount for a digital premiere of 83 but Khan opted to weather the storm out and release his film in January 2021. In the end, Gulabo Sitabo emerged as the one that could end up rewriting the rules of the game in more ways than one could imagine.
If one takes a hard look around then it becomes clear that radical change in cinema has only taken place when the consumption model of the viewer has undergone a transformation or none at all. In the late 1950s, when live television started to make its mark on storytelling thanks to the then up and coming filmmakers such as Robert Altman and Sidney Lumet, studios in the United States hired them to make films. In the same way, when the counter-culture and social unrest of the 1960s’ US became too much to ignore, studio honchos brought in the first generation of film-school educated filmmakers such as Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas to make films. These movie brats along with Brain De Palma, Peter Bogdanovich and William Friedkin went on to lay the foundation of the “American New Wave” or New Hollywood. Later when VHS threatened to alter audiences’ preference, studios began to experiment more when it came to themes. On the same lines, in the ‘post’ Coronavirus world, the way a movie is exhibited would have to change. Much like a line from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein — Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change — Bollywood and most popular cinemas in India would not only need to accept the change but also get ready for the new era.
With the Covid-19 pandemic now being a regular part of life, the film industry needed to re-look at its delivery mechanism and with the decision to digitally release Gulabo Sitabo, Shoojit Sircar has stepped into the breach. Under normal circumstances, Ronnie Lahiri and Sheel Kumar, Sircar’s long-time collaborators and the producers on Gulabo Sitabo, wouldn’t have been forced to think out of the box. But truth be told, the Sircar-Lahiri-Kumar trio is the ideal fit to lead the transition that is perhaps a once in a lifetime occurrence. Sircar’s penchant to pick up subjects that would make for compelling storytelling is complemented by frequent collaborator writer Juhi Chaturvedi and the actors that he casts but it’s producing skills of Lahiri and Kumar that play a vital role. Lahiri and Kumars’ prowess when it comes to producing films such as Madras Cafe (2013), an espionage drama that had a massive scale but a very tight budget and schedule, or Pink (2016) that did not instil faith in the distributors despite featuring a promising cast that was led by Amitabh Bachchan and included Bengali cinema’s Dhritiman Chatterjee is the stuff of Mumbai industry folklore. Despite delivering hits, Sircar’s producers rarely allow him to go overboard when it comes to money but at the same, they never cut corners when it comes to the filmmaker’s vision. Made on an approximate budget of Rs 30-35 crores, Gulabo Sitabo would have been a sure-shot winner at the box office considering the cast — Bachchan and Khurrana, and while an online release probably got them more money upfront, the risk involved is considerable. Lahiri and Kumar, as well as Sircar, are aware of the wrath of multiplex owners and theatre chains, which could come back to haunt in the course of future films, but this is probably the difference between trailblazers and the rest of the ilk.
The fight between cinema and online streaming platforms has entered a new phase with the direct-to-home debut of Gulabo Sitabo. Up until now, there would an almost two-month-long delay between the theatrical and digital release of a Hindi film. A day after announcing the premiere of Gulabo Sitabo, Amazon Prime released a list of additional six films in Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam that would debut directly on its streaming service, a move that only makes things worse for theatre owners. Perhaps this is why Sircar’s decision has invited such backlash from the movie theatre owners. In other words, the theatres would be on the edge because Sircar’s decision to skip a theatrical run is all set to usher in a new era in cinema viewing. The decision by Tamil superstar and producer Suriya to digitally release Ponmagal Vandhal that features his wife, Jyothika, also invited a backlash against the actor. Theatre and multiplex owners threatened to block all future releases featuring Suriya if the actor went ahead. Now that the genie is out of the bottle, and this is no ordinary genie with Bachchan and the current toast of the critics, Khurrana, making an appearance on the ‘smaller’ screen, things are different. It’s not like Bachchan has not been on ‘TV’ earlier, in fact, the star has been a television celebrity as well since the turn of the century when he started to host Kaun Banega Crorepati, the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and later in 2014, he front-lined Yudh, a thriller mini-series made for television. While Bachchan might not be the box office phenomenon that he once was but his aura continues to thrive and along with Khurrana it’s the perfect combination to introduce the audiences to a new epoch in the history of cinema in India. The way films were being made at the time when Bachchan debuted in Saat Hindustani (1969) was not too different from the time India’s first talkie in India, Alam Ara (1931). In a career spanning 51 years, Bachchan has survived the arrival of television, the onslaught of video piracy in the early to mid-1980s and the near-abandonment of cinema halls in the late 1980s, the mushrooming of satellite television, online piracy, and now he is at the forefront of the greatest tectonic shift in Indian cinema. When it comes to contemporary stars, Khurrana’s presence is almost a standards-compliance mark. He is a rarity who enjoys the best combination of critical acclaim, commercial success and recall with the average viewer.
The decision of the exhibition format of a film changes almost everything about the way it’s made. Gulabo Sitabo might not have been made with the intention of releasing it online but fate has a way of working things out. While planning the film, Sircar’s cinematographer Avik Mukhopadhyay came up with the idea of shooting the film with only one lens, the 30mm wide as it would let the viewer see everything in the frame. Irrespective of whether he framed a close-up or a sprawling long shot, Mukhopadhyay could capture all the details of the location and the people for Sircar to show the Gulabo Sitabo’s the unique world the way he desired. Little did the two know that they would be opening a whole new world.
The writer is a film historian and author of Dark Star: The Loneliness of Being Rajesh Khanna, The Film That Revived Hindi Cinema and Rajneeti: A Biography of Rajnath Singh
