Growing the Cinema Pie

There are so many happy movie business stories, you just have to look for them.

- VANITA KOHLI-KHANDEKAR

Take Sitaare Zameen Par. Aamir Khan Productions decided not to do any OTT deal until the film, which released on June 20, had its full theatrical run. The shorter the window between a film's theatrical release and its appearance on OTT, the less likely it is that audiences will walk into the theatre to see a small film like this one, which is about the story, not about the star — a la Pushpa 2 or Pathaan.

Since he has been critical of the two-to six-week short window, actor Aamir Khan, who owns the eponymous studio, put his money where his mouth is. Sitaare Zameen Par's success then brings courage to studios that end up doing terrible deals with streaming platforms to recover money before a release.

For another happy story, travel to West Bengal. When theatres started shutting down, going from 400 in 2000 to 140 in 2015, the largest studio in the region, SVF Entertainment, saw its collections dip. The producer of Chokher Bali and Raincoat, among other films, also owns the OTT Hoichoi and produces thousands of hours of streaming and TV programming. But this was a crisis. Theatrical revenue is the engine of the cinema ecosystem. Of the ₹20,000 crore that Indian films made in 2024, two-thirds comes from theatres. And it determines what streaming or television firms pay.