With the rise of OTT in India, there are a few actors and creators who have achieved unprecedented success in this fairly new medium and Pankaj Tripathi certainly tops that list. With shows like Mirzapur, Criminal Justice and Sacred Games to his credit, Tripathi’s huge fan base follows his film and web series choices closely and applauds him for picking roles that would have otherwise been classified as ‘character roles’ in mainstream Hindi movies until a few years ago. In a recent interview, Tripathi said that the conversation around box office collections of Hindi films is the doing of Bollywood’s PR machinery and it certainly isn’t helping their case.
Talking to Puja Talwar, Tripathi said, “Films have their own PR machinery. The conversation around the box office collection – whether it’s high or low – becomes too big.” He added that while he understands that making movies is a business, films should always be measured on the basis of the story they are offering.
“Films should always be measured in terms of the story they are offering. The shelf life of a film could be very small. People might forget a big film in 2 years but sometimes a small and simple film is remembered for years,” he said. Tripathi continued, “But yes, I understand filmmaking is a business and a lot of money is involved here. That is why the collections are a huge aspect.”
Tripathi is currently promoting the upcoming season of his show Criminal Justice, which streams on Disney+ Hotstar and the actor acknowledged that choosing a good story will always work in one’s favour and OTT platforms have proven the same. “Good stories on OTT platforms have broken that myth,” he said.
The Newton actor pointed out towards the big distinction between movies and web series that the reach of films releasing a cinema hall is heavily dependent on how many screens it gets, which is not the case with OTT. “The reach of a movie releasing in a cinema could be a problem, depending on how many screens it gets,” he said.
In conclusion, the Stree actor said that the audience is getting a chance to watch content from all over the world now, and the ball is in their court. “The audience wants to watch good stories. They are watching films from all around the world, and India, and they will only watch what they like,” he said.
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