Nikkhil Advani: OTT platforms are not into chasing stars, that’s reassuring

While Nikkhil Advani believes that while OTTs are the need of the hour, there can never be a contest between theatres and the digital platforms.

While the digital platforms have taken the entertainment world by storm, this also means that many big Bollywood stars have warmed up to the idea of being a part of the online boom. So would that now mean that the OTT platforms will now go the star chasing way?

Filmmaker Nikkhil Advani recently helmed a segment called Apartment in the anthology web film, Unpaused.

Filmmaker Nikkhil Advani does not see that happening. “I think that content should remain king. While cinema is a director’s medium, commercial cinema is an actor’s medium with all the Friday numbers, a very big aspect of OTT belongs to the platform. They know what is being liked and consumed. They know what is happening. There is a lot of encouragement that comes from there. Till today in any of the platforms that I have sat down for a meeting I have heard that we need to take the star. There is no star chasing happening and that should be reassuring for everyone,” he says.

Another raging debate last year was that about the OTT versus theatres and how many were called out for releasing their films on OTT because of the pandemic. While Advani believes that it was rather the need of the hour, there can never be a contest between the two mediums.

“No, I don’t believe in this conversation at all. The audience that is consuming OTT is very different from the audience that actually goes to cinemas. The overlap happens in cities like Mumbai, Delhi and NCR, may be the other metros slightly like Hyderabad , Bangalore, Kolkata but the consumption of cinema in theatres is very different,” he explains.

The filmmaker further says that if at all there is an overlap, it is a very small over lap. But going forward, he feels that the OTTs will play a great role in terms of the kind of films that they are buying just like the films they commission.

“They will take active interest in story line, casting production. So when that happens then we can say that OTT has become some kind of alternative to cinema,” he adds.

Advani, himself as a producer and director has a mixed bag slated for this year and will have projects releasing in cinemas as well as OTTs, which include Mumbai Diaries 26/11 and Moghuls. He also recently directed a segment called Apartment in the anthology web film, Unpaused.

“Bell Bottom and Satyameva Jayate will be theatrical. We are very clearly demarcating. Pure feature film on theatres where budgets and scale and point of consumptions is suited to cinema, then there are conversations that we are having with platforms and which are being commissioned and the third doing smaller films which we would premiere directly on digital, not commissioned by platform but sold to platform,” he concludes.