After a gap, international digital brands like Netflix and Amazon Prime reportedly plan to increase the intake of Telugu movies from April. 2024. “Telugu producers could heave a sigh of relief after going through few sleepless nights,” says a producer and adds, “Netflix and Amazon Prime are pooling up funds and they would begin to buy Telugu films from April next and it would come as a booster shot to hapless Telugu producers,” he adds.
Actually, two cash-rich OTT giants together earmark Rs 250 to 300 crores per year for procuring content from Tollywood. “They had cut down the intake of Telugu movies for the last two quarters barring a few exceptions. It became difficult for producers to make films with young and middle-aged heroes and now they would launch movies, if they get positive signals from digital giants. In the midst, Disney Hotstar bought a few Telugu movies and kept the show running,” he points out.
More star-studded films will take centre stage, “Star-studded films are largely dependent on funds from these brands as they reduce the burden of a producer. For instance, a big producer recovers his investment via audio, and satellite, besides Hindi dubbing rights and digital rights. So if top digital platforms cut down their intake then it would be tough for filmmakers to make big-ticket movies,” laments producer Abhishek Nama, who cites the enormous viewership of these two OTT platforms in 200-odd countries.
However, a top director on condition of anonymity says, “We should blame a few top Telugu filmmakers for this mess. With their fascination for pan-India movies, they claimed that their film would rock the world and traded their films for big sums, which later bombed. Every film cannot be an “RRR” or a “Pushpa’. The Telugu makers were cheating themselves as well as digital platforms that have woken up to reality and understood the limited reach of Telugu films. For instance, a digital platform which bought a Telugu star film for Rs 30 crore was unable to recover even Rs 6 crores, so corporates have to slow down.”
Summing up the argument, veteran producer C Kalyan says, "If a big film flops, 80% of its investment is wiped out. Whereas, brands will suffer lesser and manageable losses on small-budget films because of their limited investments. Actually, corporate houses make big money in the Malayalam industry by betting on novel content, so they should apply the same formula here rather than reducing their budgets which doesn't augur well for Tollywood," he concludes.
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