- Chhappad Phaad Ke, a dark comedy featuring Vinay Pathak, Ayesha Raza, Siddharth Menon, and Sheetal Thakur, is the first of the films.
- Hotstar is also awaiting the release of its highly anticipated, ad-free video streaming service, Disney+, in the United States in November 2019.
Hotstar, the Star network’s video streaming service revealed its foray into the genre of original films and will soon release films for a digital-first audience.
Chhappad Phaad Ke, a dark comedy featuring Vinay Pathak, Ayesha Raza, Siddharth Menon, and Sheetal Thakur, is the first of these films. Directed by Sameer Hemant Joshi, the film is scheduled to be released only on Hotstar VIP on 18 October. It was produced by Yoodlee Films, a subsidiary of Saregama India Ltd, which has already delivered original films on Netflix, such as Brij Mohan Amar Rahe and Kuchh Bheege Alfaaz.
“It was our constant effort at Hotstar to create meaningful and thought-provoking content that raises the bar on our excellence in storytelling. With the latest addition of digital-first movies to the label of our Hotstar Specials, movie lovers will now be able to enjoy high concept stories–anytime, anywhere,” said Varun Narang, Chief Marketing Officer, Hotstar in a statement. Siddharth Anand Kumar, Vice President, Films and Television, Saregama and one of the film’s producers said Chhappad Phaad Ke marked the beginning of Yoodlee Films’ association.
This is in line with our ongoing commitment to making compelling stories translate on-screen that can be exciting and socially relevant at once,” Kumar said in a statement.
Indeed, streaming services in India have already taken steps towards creating digital-only movies. Netflix announced its first original film with Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions, the action thriller Drive last month.
The comedy-drama Lootcase by Kunal Khemu and Ranvir Shorey was scheduled to arrive in movie theatres until the beginning of October but will now be exclusively premiered on Hotstar.
On the other hand, Hotstar is awaiting the release of its highly anticipated, ad-free video streaming service, Disney+, in the United States in November 2019.
In the course of routing them to India, it plans to find Disney+ movies and shows by dubbing and inserting subtitles throughout Indian languages, including Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. In June 2018, Walt Disney had purchased the 21st Century Fox Inc. from Rupert Murdoch in a $71 billion cash and stock transaction. That makes Walt Disney part of Star India, Fox Star Studios, and Hotstar in India.
Hotstar has emerged as the topmost preferred over-the-top (OTT) platform in the country, with more than 41 percent of the respondents picking it compared to 26 percent voting for Amazon Prime Video and 9 percent for Netflix. As per the survey, 55 percent of the survey respondents prefer to watch the content on OTT platforms and over 85 percent of them said that they have watched at least one of the major OTT Platform in the last six months. It is a great time for OTT media platforms in India and Hotstar is leading the pack, miles ahead of its peer platforms. Disney-owned Hotstar was the first to jump on the massive opportunity that India had as a digital audience by creating an app that focuses on providing tonnes of content from different languages and genres.
