The late Puneeth Rajkumar’s James finds its streaming and satellite partners

SonyLiv snaps up rights to all languages at Rs 40 crore, state reports.

Puneeth Rajkumar in a still from James

Yesterday, on the birthday of late Puneeth Rajkumar (March 17), his last full-fledged film as hero, James, released in theatres across the world. An estimated 4,000 shows of James were screened on March 17, across the globe and languages, given that the film was released in Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Hindi. The film is well on its way to becoming one of the biggest hits at the box office with an estimated Rs 27 crore Day 1 gross collection, as fans and everyone who ever liked Puneeth’s work as an actor make their way to theatres to see him onscreen.

The latest buzz is that the makers have made satellite and digital rights deals. According to reports, SonyLiv outbid Amazon Prime Video and snapped up the OTT rights to James in all the languages it has been released. The streaming platform apparently paid a whopping Rs 40 crore for this, which is even higher than the Rs 28 crore for Puneeth’s earlier film, Yuvarathnaa. The Kannada satellite rights went to Star Suvarna, while Sony Network picked up the Hindi version. The Tamil satellite rights have reportedly gone to Sun Network and Telugu to MaaTV. The Bhojpuri dubbing rights have also been sold.

While the makers of James have finalized these deals, they will be in no hurry to bring the film to OTT. This is, after all, Puneeth’s last film as hero, so James will remain in theatres for a while. Directed by Chethan Kumar, James was in production when Puneeth Rajkumar passed away in October last year. While he had completed most of the talkie portions, the team had to resort to CGI and the use of a stunt double for a few crucial scenes and present the film as promised on March 17.

Share