Ronnie Screwvala 2.0: Return to entertainment

Officially, the 64-year old media veteran speaks only of his online education company upGrad and charitable venture The Swades Foundation but his production house RSVP Movies has been making waves both for its feature films and web originals.

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Over the last few months, web shows across languages including Netflix’s anthology dramas Paava Kadhaigal (Tamil) and Pitta Kathalu (Telugu), romantic comedy Mismatched, mystery thriller Raat Akeli Hai, and a critically acclaimed short film starring Vidya Balan called Natkhat have placed RSVP firmly among the top content creators for OTT platforms.

The web medium suits RSVP well, given Screwvala’s penchant for non-star driven, realistic and concept-heavy subjects, a rule he followed even during UTV’s early days in a star-dependent Bollywood when it was also one of the first corporate studios in an industry ruled by family companies.

The web shows were preceded by an impressive start at the box office with war drama Uri-The Surgical Strike that had made over Rs200 crore on its release in 2019 and a moderate success at around Rs70 crore with Sushant Singh Rajput-starrer Kedarnath.

Screwvala declined to comment on Mint’s queries regarding his comeback, saying that ‘storytelling at RSVP is purely a passion project for now’ and that he prefers to focus on his educational and charitable ventures. Apart from upGrad and Swades, he has co-founded a private equity firm Unilazer that invests in startups and sports league U Sports. However, none of the media or film industry experts that Mint reached out to said Screwvala’s return to the entertainment business was surprising.

"What is different about his second turn is that he is concentrating far more on delivering output for OTT than for theatricals. That works out well because there are few production companies in India currently that can churn out international-quality web originals of the sort that Netflix and Amazon want, with movie-level kind of production values," said a media analyst who did not wish to be named.

Along with Karan Johar’s Dharmatic Entertainment, Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani’s Excel Entertainment and Anushka Sharma’s Clean Slate Films, RSVP happens to be among the few firms looking beyond the daily soap kind of quality and structure found on homegrown streaming platforms such as ZEE5 and MX Player, the person said.

Screwvala is not new to delivering quality or not banking on stars. Smaller films and offbeat narratives were his forte as early as 2005 when he made Khosla Ka Ghosla, Life…in a Metro, Mumbai Meri Jaan, A Wednesday!, Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! and later The Lunchbox, long before Bollywood discovered such urban themes for multiplex audiences. So his backing behind concept-driven films like Sonchiriya or Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota now are hardly surprising.

"The goodwill has remained but he is starting from the scratch now," Atul Mohan, editor of trade magazine Complete Cinema said. He’s also had box office duds such as Karwaan and Bhangra Pa Le, however, with most big stars producing their own films and taking away a chunk of profits, betting big on the web is like being at the right place at the right time, Mohan pointed out.

A non-compete clause signed with Disney had barred Screwvala from starting a conflicting business for a few years, also the time that UTV colleague Siddharth Roy Kapur served as managing director at Disney India. After the latter quit the American conglomerate in 2016 and started an independent venture called Roy Kapur Films, the two have collaborated on projects such as Pihu and The Sky Is Pink.

Roy Kapur did not respond to Mint’s queries for this story.

The Walt Disney Co had acquired a controlling interest in UTV Software and Communications Ltd in 2012, in a deal valued at Rs2,000 crore.

"His command over the creative and commercial side of the business is evident as ever and it is his unwavering passion for cinema and his in-depth knowledge of the global entertainment industry that has brought him back," said filmmaker Ram Mirchandani referring to Screwvala, who worked in the creative, production, distribution and business development verticals at UTV in the mid-2000s.

The difference is that he has nicely subsumed the OTT ecosystem, Mirchandani added, given that the target audience is much younger now.

It is easy to see that three of RSVP’s eight upcoming projects, including Kangana Ranaut-starrer Tejas where she plays an air force pilot, war film Pippa starring Ishaan Khatter and The Immortal Ashwathamma starring Vicky Kaushal are high on the mythological, patriotic, nationalist flavour. Many point to the fact that Screwvala’s love for the genre goes way back to the days of Rang De Basanti and Swades at UTV.

"There is general aggressiveness in terms of nationalist fervour, something that the central government promotes and that is currently the mood of the nation. He’s simply cashing in on what’s working," Mohan said.