Gulabo Sitabo: INOX Theatres slam Shoojit Sircar’s decision to release Ayushmann Khurrana, Amitabh Bachchan starrer on Amazon Prime

Even before the lockdown was announced state government asked the malls and cinema halls to be shut to prevent the outspread of Coronavirus. Since then many films have been stalled and even after two months, filmmakers don’t see any ray of hope that cinema halls will open before September or October. So, making the use of the digital era they thought of releasing their films on OTT platforms such as Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Disney+Hotstar among others.

After Akshay Kumar and Kiara Advani’s Laxmmi Bomb, yesterday Shoojit Sircar confirmed the news that he is going to release his dramedy Gulabo Sitabo starring Amitabh Bachchan and Ayushmann Khurrana on Amazon Prime Video. The film will premier across 200 countries and territories on 12th June. However, this decision of director didn’t go down well with the INOX Theaters.

Releasing a long statement they slammed the director for opting OTT platform for their release and ditching the theatres. They want the other production houses to not follow this trend and maintain a healthy relationship with other cinemas.

The excerpt of the statement read, “Cinemas and content creators have always been into mutually beneficial partnerships where one’s action provided a fillip to another’s revenues. INOX has been investing profoundly towards adding world-class quality screens, across the country, only to provide more eyeballs to the great content being produced. This partnership has endured for decades and has provided succour to each other. In these troubled times, it is disturbing to see one of the partners not interested in continuing the mutually beneficial relationship, especially when the need of the hour is to stand shoulder to shoulder with each other, and bring the film industry back to its vibrant best.”

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They went on to urge all the content creators to not skip the theatrical run and stay with the age-old and established windowing pattern. In their statement, they termed producers who moved to release their film on OTT platform as fair-weather friends and warned that from now on they will be constrained to examine and will reserves all rights, including taking retributive measures to tackle such fair-weather friends.

Now, this is something serious, well everyone is seeing their profits. Filmmakers who have put their all in the making of the film have a right to make decisions regarding the betterment of their film. However, because of the lockdown, even theatres are in a big loss and after seeing makers shifting their interest from theatres to OTT their hearts must have sunk. Well, after this long statement by INOX it will be interesting to see what filmmakers and producers have to say on this.

Also Read: From Gulabo Sitabo to Shershaah, upcoming Bollywood films to release on OTT platforms