Farhan Akhtar’s ‘Toofan’ to premiere on 16 July
Premium- Farhan Akhtar announced that his sports drama Toofan will premiere on Amazon Prime Video on 16 July
NEW DELHI: After delaying its release due to the second wave of covid-19, actor Farhan Akhtar has announced that his sports drama Toofan will now premiere on Amazon Prime Video on 16 July.
Directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, the film stars Mrunal Thakur and Paresh Rawal alongside Akhtar and was originally supposed to start streaming on 21 May.
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“With humility, love and in dedication to the fighting spirit of the beautiful people of our nation, our film ‘Toofaan’ will be releasing on July 16," Akhtar tweeted.
Though trade experts say the resumption of Bollywood films in theatres will gradually mean an end to the aggressive turn video streaming platforms had taken to acquire films for direct digital premieres, some producers are likely to take the OTT route for finished projects that may not find adequate showcasing in the near future. Netflix has also acquired titles such as Kartik Aaryan’s Dhamaka and Taapsee Pannu’s Haseen Dilruba, besides having premiered Parineeti Chopra-starrer The Girl On The Train earlier this year.
Trade analysts and entertainment industry experts said digital has emerged stronger than ever before during the pandemic and is unlikely to go away any time soon, despite theatre owners urging filmmakers to release films for big screens to help the recovery of the industry.
The economics also make sense. For second-rung stars, producers may not see sense in spending an additional ₹8-10 crore for publicity and advertising on a film made on a budget of ₹15 crore when a streaming platform is ready to cough up around ₹20 crore with no distribution or marketing costs. It helps to keep the business cycle going when a production house has bigger films in the pipeline that it has to fund, trade experts say.
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