More Than Streaming: Why Indian Audiences Are Ditching The Big Screen

Picture this: A giant movie theatre, 100 seats, but only around 20 people scattered around. That's not a flop movie scene, but rather the reality for India's biggest movie chain, PVR Inox, for the last two years.

OTT platforms take the flak for this scenario. But get this—almost half the people polled by NDTV Profit still want the big-screen experience.

So, what's the real problem? The answer, it seems, lies in the stories being told. A total of 86% of the 1,102 respondents polled by NDTV Profit believe Bollywood's content is just not the same anymore.

As per Ormax Media, gross box office collections for Hindi language films saw a 13% annual drop in 2024 to Rs 5,380 crore, while Telugu, Gujarati, and Malayalam films saw a growth of 4% to 104%.

The picture gets worse. Only 60% of the domestic Hindi box office collection in 2024 came from original Hindi language films, while the remaining came from Hindi dubbed movies. To put this in perspective, original Hindi language films accounted for 94% of box office collections in 2023.

Further, the box office share of Hindi movies in 2024 stood at 40% versus 44% in 2023 and 45% in 2015.

Though Hindi films as a whole saw the highest box office collection, when analysed as per language, only 5 out of the 15 highest-grossing Hindi films were original Hindi-language movies. The rest were either international or dubbed and originally filmed in another language.

Recently, Bollywood filmmaker Anurag Kashyap announced that he has left Mumbai. Kashyap's reasons for doing so were the "disillusionment with a myopic Hindi film industry, risk aversion among producers and platforms, and insecure actors favouring lavish lifestyles over challenging and exciting work. “I want to stay away from film people.

The industry has become too toxic. Everyone is chasing unrealistic targets, trying to make the next Rs 500 and Rs 800 crore film. The creative atmosphere is gone,” Kashyap said.

Kashyap isn't the only filmmaker who thinks so. Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri, in his latest social media post, highlighted how 'Bollywood is falling.'. "Today, Bollywood has hardly any independent producers. No new producers. No fresh ideas.

No innovative distribution or marketing strategies. A few years ago, there were a dozen studios—now just two or three remain, and they too are monopolistic and here for reasons other than filmmaking. The passion for cinema has been replaced by corporate greed and agenda-driven content,” Agnihotri stated.

Certain big-budget films in 2024 were box office failures, failing to impress viewers. These include films like Jigra, Bade Miyan Chote Miyan, Yodha, Chandu Champion, Teri Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya, Maidaan, Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video, Kheel Khel Mein, and Sarfira, the total box office collection of which stood in the range of only Rs 30-Rs 103 crore.

As per a poll conducted by NDTV Profit, 54% of respondents stated 'marketing' is now the king of Bollywood, rather than content.

It was actually re-releases of old Bollywood films that actually made more than some new movies in 2024. For example, movies like Sanam Teri Kasam and Tumbbad made Rs 30 to Rs 50 crore in gross collection while only screening for a limited time.

Another poll also revealed that 42% of people would go watch a movie in a theatre, but 58% would rather wait for the same movie to come on an OTT platform and then watch it.

In 2024, the total gross box collection stood at Rs 11,833 crore, marking a 4% decline compared to the previous year. This number came in despite 110 films being released on the big screen and earning a collection of over Rs 10 crore. This was the highest number of films released in theatres since at least 2018.

And if one is to blame higher volume of OTT content, the number of original streaming content on platforms stood at 315—the lowest proportion of streaming originals released since 2020.