PremiumNEW DELHI:Ajay Devgn’s period drama Bhuj: The Pride of India will premiere on Disney+ Hotstar for the Independence Day weekend on 13 August. Set during the Indo-Pakistan war of 1971, the film has been directed by Abhishek Dudhaiya and also features Sanjay Dutt, Sonakshi Sinha, Nora Fatehi, Sharad Kelkar andAmmy Virk.
Last June, Disney+ Hotstar, the video streaming service owned by Walt Disney had announced the acquisition and release of seven Bollywood titles directly on the streaming platform, in what was estimated to be a significant Rs. 400 crore deal. Busting the myth that only mid-sized films were skipping a theatrical release as the covid-19 pandemic raged on and theatres remained shut, the titles included Akshay Kumar's Laxmii and Alia Bhatt-starrer Sadak 2 besides Bhuj.
As of this May, Hotstar was the strongest contributor to Disney+’s net subscriber additions worldwide, making up approximately a third of the OTT platform’s subscriber base at the end of the March quarter, the company had said in an earnings call. Given that total Disney+ subscribers stood at 103.6 million, this would translate into around 34 million subscribers for Disney+ Hotstar.
The video-on-demand service had notched up around 25 million subscribers in India by February 2021. In contrast, competing US streaming service provider Netflix is estimated to have closed the year 2020 with 4.6 million paid subscribers in India, according to an analysis by Media Partners Asia, an independent provider of research, advisory and consulting services across media, telecoms, sports and entertainment industries in Asia Pacific. Amazon Prime Video’s subscriber base is estimated at 17 million by MPA.
In March 2020, Hotstar, the video streaming service of the Star network, was rebranded as Disney+ Hotstar in India and a few other Asian markets. Elsewhere, the service is known as Disney+. In a price-sensitive market like India, Hotstar is priced at Rs. 399 per annum for its VIP service and Rs. 1,499 for Premium.
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