Does a man facing bankruptcy start his production offices from his own building during lockdown? Does he conduct the wedding of his daughter in a big way ? Does he fund another movie during this period with a Star ? Yes. One and only Antony Perumbavoor , man Friday of Mohanlal. But when it comes to taking a market risk to bank on theaters, he cites financial squeeze as reason to sell the film to OTT. Theater owners say that Mohanlal should have shown the care that Vijay took to keep the exhibitors alive in Tamil Nadu. Like with Master where Vijay's uncle is a producer along with Lalith. Master's OTT rights was already sold to Amazon for a whooping Rs 80cr before lockdown. Vijay has double the market that Mohanlal commands in the South and could have easily sold it off to make his bucks.
If Antony says that his Rs 100 cr was blocked in Marakkar starring Lal and directed by Priyadarshan and so he had to sell Drishyam to get the money to release Marakka ,it means the profit from Drishyam would be used to pay the interest on money taken for production of Marakkar. Lalith too faced the same problem as he was having to keep away distributors who paid crores as advance for Master. Apart from this, his three big budgeted films with top actors are stuck due to COVID..
Antony claims that OTT offered him money for Marakkar that would have given him profits. No OTT would pay anything more than Rs 60 cr for a Malayalam film, even it has an pan Indian subject. Marakkar does not have any such appeal and neither does Lal - Priyan combo.
Bare truth is that Drishyam in theaters was a risk that Antony was not willing to share with exhibitors. Secondly the money from Drishyam cleared his debts and thus making him harvest all the returns of Marakkar without sharing with anybody. The claim that they waited till December 31 to know whether theaters in Kerala open and then signed a deal with Amazon is a lie as there was no talks done with any exhibitors about the release terms.
The money is yours and you can decide how to sell your ware. Do not make it look like you are doing a service to industry. The line that by selling Drishyam 2 to OTT you have saved Marakkar for Kerala exhibitors who can make treble the profits and so you did is for the interests of the industry. The best line would be We are not willing to stick our necks for you exhibitors. Antony who heads some trade bodies should also ask all those who gave films to OTT and TV channels to throw the notices they got into the place it deserves to be. in contrast Anto Joseph at least took permission before putting out his film Kilometeres on TV.
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