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NEW DELHI: American musical romantic drama West Side Story, directed and co-produced by Steven Spielberg, will stream on Disney+ Hotstar on 2 March. It is the second feature-length adaptation of the 1957 stage musical of the same name and stars Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler in her film debut with Ariana DeBose, David Alvarez, Mike Faist, and Rita Moreno in supporting roles.
American films, television shows and programming in Turkish, German and Korean languages, including their dubbed versions, are emerging as a big draw on over-the-top (OTT) video streaming services, accounting for as much as 30% of overall viewership, said senior executives at several of these platforms.
While such international content finds ready takers among young urban Indians in the metros, those in small towns benefit from their dubbed versions in both Hindi and regional languages. Metro audiences have discovered international content on OTT, small towns are now beginning to acquire a taste for what may be considered cool, and is part of social media chatter.
Netflix’s Extraction and The Kissing Booth have been popular in Hindi and Tamil as have Amazon’s The Boys, The Tomorrow War, Wonder Woman and Parasite. Walt Disney, too, has decided to tap smaller towns by making Disney+ (including Marvel) content available even on its cheaper price plans in India to expand reach.
While a handful of niche, foreign language TV channels and torrent websites on the Internet had introduced Indians to international content earlier, OTT platforms have helped improve ease of access. A lot of these shows primarily had appeal for an urban audience but are now reaching tier-2 and -3 towns in dubbed versions because of the aspirational value attached to them. As streaming services have identified a demand in the country, it makes sense to invest in it, said media experts.
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