We know how OTT platforms played a crucial role in saving us from boredom and inactivity during lockdown. Medium and low budget makers shifted their focus towards these platforms and released their flicks. A new system called ‘Pay-per-view’ was introduced by ‘ZEEPLEX’ which is attracting a lot of filmmakers. This needs the viewer to pay a prescribed fee to watch a movie as opposed to OTT which demands a monthly or yearly subscription fee and lets you watch any movie, at any time and at any place.
Recently two films named Ka Pae Ranasingham(Tamil) and ‘Khaali Peeli(Hindi)’ were released on ‘ZEEPLEX’. Nobody has expectations on ‘Khaali Peeli’ and yet ‘ZEE 5’ and ‘ZEEPLEX’ have fixed a price of Rs.299 for it. Even theatres which offer superior viewing experience don’t command such ridiculous prices. ‘Khaali Peeli’ received largely negative reviews and it is most likely to collect a meagre Rs.3 crores.
‘Makkal Selvan’ Vijay Sethupathi played the leading role in ‘Ka Pae Ranasingham’ which is based on farmer’s issues. ‘ZEEPLEX’ fixed a price of Rs.199 for it which is a bit high than that of a theatrical ticket. It amassed good reviews and as high as seventy thousand people paid the fee to watch it on the first day. So ‘Ka Pae Ranasingham’ collected more than Rs.70lakhs on its first day of release.
It has a running time of 2.57 hours and ‘ZEEPLEX’ permits a threshold time of six hours to complete the film. If your connection is down or power goes off, you have to pay the fees again after six hours if you want to watch the movie. This is a drawback as nobody will be ready to pay such a high fee for the second time. It is advisable for the platforms to increase the threshold time in order to accommodate any such discrepancies. Even Sai DharamTej’s ‘Solo Brathuke So Better’ is releasing in ‘Pay-per-view’ system on ‘ZEEPLEX’. Let’s see how our Tollywood audiences respond to this system.
