Ravi Teja-starrer ‘Krack’ to premiere on Zee Cinema

NEW DELHI: Telugu star Ravi Teja’s Krack will see its dubbed Hindi version premiere on 27 June on Zee Cinema. The film that had released for Pongal this January had set the cash registers ringing with box office collections of around ₹70 crore.

To be sure, the southern movie industry had held on better to business than Bollywood post the pandemic and was on its way to recovery. Besides Krack, other Telugu offerings like Jathi Ratnalu and Vakeel Saab, Tamil hit Master, Kannada action-drama Yuvarathnaa and Malayalam horror mystery The Priest had set the cash registers ringing.

Big titles like Dhanush-starrer Karnan and Pawan Kalyan’s Vakeel Saab had even gone ahead with a theatrical release in April as Bollywood pushed films like Sooryavanshi, Bunty Aur Babli 2 and Chehre and witnessed cinema shutdowns in key states such as Maharashtra and Delhi.

Movie channels on television were expected to see a viewership spike of 10-20% as more people stayed at home during the second wave of covid infections and there was a slate of films, more in south Indian languages, available for satellite premiere post their theatrical release earlier this year, according to media experts.

Some broadcasters also believe small-town, massy audiences may not take entirely to discerning content available on OTT (over-the-top streaming) platforms and with few other avenues available, they will turn to television, including direct-to-digital films such as Laxmii that notched up big numbers for its satellite premiere recently.

Reduction in the volume of films available for release on television coupled with caution on the part of broadcasters (given that both television advertising and subscription revenues were impacted) resulted in broadcast rights falling 68% in 2020, according to a recent Ficci-EY report. However, movie channels contributed 24% of total television viewership and were the most viewed genre after general entertainment.