Despite cinemas gearing up to open on 15 October all over India, a new set of hyped films have been confirmed for OTT release over the next months. On Friday, Amazon Prime Video announced a slate of nine films spanning five Indian languages that will premiere directly on the streaming service. These include the Varun Dhawan and Sara Ali Khan-starrer ‘Coolie No. 1’, the Rajkummar Rao-starrer ‘Chhalaang’, and ‘Durgavati’ featuring Bhumi Pednekar. Sara and Varun’s ‘Coolie No. 1’ will release on Christmas (25 December), while the Bhumi-starrer ‘Durgavati’ will premiere on 11 December.
‘Halal Love Story’ (Malayalam) is scheduled to premiere on 15 October while ‘Bheema Sena Nalamaharaja’ (Kannada) will drop on 29 October, and ‘Soorarai Pottru’ (Tamil) on 30 October. ‘Manne Number 13’ (Kannada) will premiere on 19 November, and ‘Middle Class Melodies’ (Telugu) on 20 November. ‘Maara’ (Tamil) is scheduled to premiere on 17 December. “Our previous directto-service launches were watched in over 180 countries. We are buoyed by the tremendous response we received and are excited to up the ante with another 9 eagerly-awaited directto-service premieres, spanning 5 languages, to entertain our customers through this festive season,” said Vijay Subramaniam of the streaming platform. To this, the platform’s Gaurav Gandhi added:
“The fact that more than 50 percent of viewership of our Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam direct to digital titles came from outside of the respective home states is representative of how digital distribution can expand the audience for great content. We are super excited to present our new slate and are confident that it will delight our customers in India and around the world.”