Hindustan Times (Lucknow) - Hindustan Times (Lucknow) - Live
IS OTT ERA THE END OF THE STAR REVIEWS?
With no box office numbers to lean on, the focus may shift from a film’s stars to its story
The Covid-19 pandemic, which brought the entertainment industry to a standstill, also made producers realise that releasing new films digitally is the best option for now. And films have been making a beeline to get a release on OTT platforms. But in the absence of box office numbers or any indicators to determine a film’s success or failure, there is no clarity on which actor’s film is faring better than the other’s, thus leaving the ‘star’ system redundant .
Ad filmmaker-turned-Hindi film director Vinil Mathew says since we don’t have any way to measure the popularity of a film or an actor, “it does kind of dilute and affect the brand value of an actor. I think till one devises parameters, there is no way to assess an actor’s value any more on the basis of his films. A star is a product of theatrical releases and, without it, obviously it would affect their stardom”.
The lack of box office figures makes OTT releases an entire game of perception management since there is little authentic data to back it up. “Anybody can say ‘these many people have watched my film on the first three days’, there is no way to authenticate it. Stardom is out of the question now. One important component of stardom was pulling people to the theatres, there is nothing like that on OTT platforms. The push, pull and aura of stardom have completely vanished on OTT,” says film marketeer Varun Gupta, founder-director of MAX Marketing.
Not all are complaining, though. Actor Amyra Dastur, who has starred in a web-only released film Rajma Chawal (2018), says things are better now than ever before because everything is based on wordof-mouth, not just box office collections. “Now you have to do everything based on talent. Yes a big star’s name is going to garner more interest but, at the end of the day, it is all about how good the content is. All you care about is whether it was good or not, just like in old times,” shares the actor.
The democratic nature of OTT platforms is what might make the star system and the concept of star value obsolete, feels actor Nimrat Kaur.
Agrees ad filmmaker Prahlad Kakkar, who says that the OTT platforms have made the star system “very open”. “People will respect you if they relate to you, if not then they will diss you. Now with the OTT (releases) there is a breath of fresh air. It is all about content and a star does not matter,” he explains.
“Value is dependent on how you measure it. For both, the actors and us, ” expresses Aparna Acharekar, programming head, ZEE5 India, while adding, “We have had plenty of stars whose debut films premiered on the platform and the response has been phenomenal! For instance, Shalini Pandey and Aditya Rawal received immense appreciation for their roles in Bamfaad and we left no stone unturned when it came to talking about their hard work. The reach that we, as a video streaming platform are able to provide not just in India, but globally, is immense and talent – newcomers or established – are seeing this as a huge opportunity.”