When the situation seemed under control, the Covid second wave has hit forcing the theatres to shut down again. This gave rise to the OTT market. Big ticket films like Narappa are also taking the digital release route.Ahead of Narappa OTT release, Suresh Babu spoke to the media and gave his reasons behind opting for the OTT release.
Suresh Productions head Daggubati Suresh Babu said, when they thought of releasing Narappa in theatres, Covid outbreak was severe and there was no information on when the theatres will be reopened. Even if the theatres reopen,no one knows how the audinces would respond to the theatre release of Narappa.Taking all these aspects into consideration, we went for OTT release, he said.
The ace producer even gave an example of what happened with Dhanush’s Karnan.During the first week, theatres were allowed to run with 100 percent occupancy. Later, it was cut short to 50 percent and the movie was pulled out of theatres with Covid scare.Kalaipuli S. Thanu suffered a loss if Rs 10 crore due to this, Suresh Babu said.
Suresh Productions was started in 1964 to release films in theatres. Satellite rights came later and next came the Hindi dubbing rights. Multiple markets are available now. OTT is one of them. I don’t think that we can stop OTTs. However, we can say that OTTs might not get so popular if the Covid would have not hit. OTTs are providing opportunities for employees in different sectors like dubbing, and technical department, he maintained.
Talking about Narappa skipping the theatre release, Suresh Babu said, like Venkatesh, he also felt bad for not able to release the film in theatres. Saying that we should be practical in life, he cited the examples of Disney company and Bollywood Superstar Salman Khan releasing films on OTT platforms and theatres at a time.
He also spoke about doing a remake film and said they have liked the film and the way Vetrimaaran directed the film. No one writes such scripts for Venkatesh. Venkatesh has worked hard for Narappa. Sreekanth Addala did a wonderful job as a director.
We shot a schedule for 52 days in a village. We were informed that a Covid case was reported in a nearby village. We have completed the shoot amid Covid fear and scare. During the non shoot of Narappa, four people involved in the project have passed away.
We have launched SP Music recently. Along with Film Music, this will also have other music vidoes. We are in plans to encourage newcomers by starting small studios in places like Guntur and Vijayawada, he said.
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