Disney+Hotstar, the streaming company of the Star network announced that it’d be releasing a number of major Hindi films on their platforms.
Between July and October, the films that will release on the platform include Akshay Kumar and Kiara Advani’s Laxmi Bomb, the Ajay Devgn-Sanjay Dutt-starrer, Bhuj: The Pride of India, Alia Bhatt-Aditya Roy Kapur’s Sadak 2 (directed by Mahesh Bhatt), the Abhishek Bachchan-starrer, The Big Bull (loosely inspired by the life of stockbroker Harshad Mehta) on their platform in the coming months. Other two films include Lootcase starring Kunal Khemu and Khuda Hafiz starring Vidyut Jamwal.
The virtual press conference was attended by actors Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgn, Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan and Abhishek Bachchan. The actors spoke about how they’ve been spending their time in lockdown (Varun learnt yoga, Alia picked up meditation, Ajay Devgn watched The Wire and True Detective). They also spoke about missing theatres and the experience of watching a Bollywood film in a single-screen theatre.
As theatres remain shut across the country, many Bollywood films have chosen to go for a digital release. The Amitabh Bachchan-Ayushmann Khurrana starrer, Gulabo Sitabo, which was acquired by Amazon Prime Video, was the first major release to drop online.
That led to theatre chains such as Inox and PVR issuing strongly-worded statements, expressing their ‘disappointment’ at producers who circumvented theatrical exhibition to go for a straight-to-streaming release.