By Joginder Tuteja
The week gone by hadn't seen a single new OTT release and that was quite surprising as one would have expected the OTT giants to benefit from the Holi festivities on Monday. Nonetheless, while that was a missed opportunity indeed, coming week is set to be exciting due to arrival of two new films - The Big Bull and Hello Charlie. Both were originally designed for theatrical arrival but would now be seeing straight-to-digital release.
Let's talk about The Big Bull first.
By all means, this is the biggest Bollywood film to see an OTT premiere in 2021. Last year was special when biggies like Akshay Kumar's Laxmmi, Varun Dhawan's Coolie No. 1, Janhvi Kapoor's Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl, Amitabh Bachchan-Ayushmann Khurranna's Gulabo Sitabo, Sushant Singh Rajput's Dil Bechara, Vidya Balan's Shakuntala Devi, Bhumi Pednekar's Durgamati, Vidyut Jammwal's Khuda Hafiz, Sanjay Dutt-Alia Bhatt's Sadak 2 and Pulkit Samrat-Kriti Kharbanda's Taish were the major releases that had arrived directly on the OTT channels.
The scenario changed in 2021 though since theatres started opening up and even though there was a flip-flop around the OTT premiere of Mumbai Saga (already released), Chehre, Sooryavanshi, and '83, for now, it is only theatrical arrival for them. However, one movie for which a call was taken for a digital release back in 2020 itself was The Big Bull. The film's arrival on Disney + Hotstar was held on for the beginning of the second quarter of 2021 and this is the reason why it would be releasing on 8th April now.
In fact, when the announcement around the release date came, the pandemic was on a decline in India and hence many wondered if it would help if the Abhishek Bachchan starrer would arrive first in theaters. After all, the promo has been cut quite well and director Kookie Gulati is promising an exciting fast-paced entertainer. Ajay Devgn and Anand Pandit too have backed the film to the fullest as a producer and the promotion have been on a high note and at the same scale as it would be for a theatrical release.
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All of these factors should ensure that The Big Bull sees good eyeballs coming their way on its premiere. In fact, it won't be surprising if it fetches one of the best numbers for a direct-to-OTT release when compared to the best of the best of 2020. Stay tuned, as we bring in more updates around the film post its release.
The second release Hello Charlie is designed as a quirky comedy featuring a young man [Aadar Jain] who finds the company of a man [Jackie Shroff] dressed up in a guerilla suit. Considering the fact that it is a Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani production, the film could well be in a Fukrey zone, as far as a zany narrative is concerned. The film releases on Amazon Prime on 9th April and while the promotion has been fair, one now waits to see how audiences react to it once it's there to be grabbed.
Release dates (for next week)
The Big Bull - Disney + Hotstar - 8th April
Hello Charlie - Amazon Prime - 9th April
(Joginder Tuteja is a trade expert and film critic, and loves to talk and write about anything that is related to films. Views are personal)