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Aamir Khan changes the game
Business Standard
|August 12, 2025
On August 1, R S Prasanna's Sitaare Zameen Par was released on Aamir Khan Talkies on YouTube.
To watch it, you pay around ₹100. The film is available at an "affordable" price in 38 other countries. YouTube, the world's largest streaming platform with 2.7 billion users, will be rolling it out in more markets.
In India, over 445 million people were on YouTube in April, according to Comscore data. If even one per cent of them pay, the film would make over ₹44 crore. Factor in the rest of the world, and it should, at a very conservative estimate, cross ₹100 crore on the pay-per-view window. Add its global box-office gross of ₹250 crore, and you get a total of ₹350 crore for this small film. Note: These are gross figures, inclusive of revenue share with YouTube/theatres and taxes.
In an interview after the online release announcement, both Gunjan Soni, country managing director of YouTube India, and actor-producer Aamir Khan refused to speculate on how many people might watch the film or how it might perform online. They emphasised instead that the move is about expanding the market for Indian cinema.
That is why it is a game-changer.
This story is from the August 12, 2025 edition of Business Standard.
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