INOX theatres release a strong statement after 'Gulabo Sitabo's' OTT platform announcement

Rising Sun Films on Thursday announced that Amitabh Bachchan and Ayushmann Khurrana starrer Gulaba Sitabo directed by Shoojit Sircar will release on OTT platform Amazon Prime on June 12.

INOX theatres released a statement on Gulabo Sitabo hitting OTT before theatrical release. INOX urged “producers not to skip theatrical run and stay with age-old and established windowing pattern.”

READ FULL STATEMENT

INOX would like to express extreme displeasure and disappointment on an announcement made by a production house today, to release their movie directly on an OTT platform by skipping the theatrical window run. The decision of the production house to deviate from the globally prevalent content windowing practice is alarming and disconcerting.

Cinemas and content creators have always been into mutually beneficial partnerships where one's action provided 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.

Such acts, though isolated, vitiate the atmosphere of mutual partnership and paint these content producers as fair weather friends rather than all-weather life-long partners. Needless to say, INOX will be constrained to examine its options, and reserves all rights, including taking retributive measures, in dealing with such fair-weather friends.

INOX would like to reiterate that as the backbone of the cinematic value chain, this windowing pattern has done wonders in terms of revenues for the content creators and all other stakeholders, as it offers them the opportunity to extract the best from all available mediums, which include cinemas, OTT platforms as well as satellite.

INOX would like to urge all content creators not to skip the theatrical run, and stay with the age old and established windowing pattern, which is in the best interests of all stakeholders in the value chain.

Shoojit Sircar's decision of Gulabo Sitabo's digital release was due his 'bad habit'; read