Mrs director Arati Kadav explains why films aren’t getting greenlit, says money for artistes is drying up

Arati Kadav underlined the example of HBO’s popular fantasy epic Game of Thrones, made on a budget of $600 million, but which was accessible to Indian viewers on JioHotstar for just a meagre subscription fee of Rs 200. She blamed that strategy for HBO’s quick departure from India. The only other “sensible” premium television giant that expected subscribers to pay for “quality content”, she said, was Apple, which launched its streaming platform Apple TV in 2019.

“The theatres cannot match and are spiralling out of control in their ticket prices as one hit subsidizes for 20 flops,” Kadav argued, adding, “Even for platforms one good show allows many average shows to exist to create an illusion of content pipeline.” The said illusion, she added, enticed several artistes to the streaming platforms. But the same artistes, even after they became big on streaming, are no longer enjoying the same salaries because no platform has money in this bleak scenario.

“Netflix too only has stocks – and it is using market forces to entice investors to acquire content libraries like Warner Bros,” pointed out Kadav, referring to Netflix’s recent $82.70 billion acquisition of legacy Hollywood studio Warner Bros. The filmmaker added that the only way out of the current status quo is if customers pay sufficiently for quality content.

“Customers NEED to pay for the movies- if you are giving the best of movies for cheap in a month of release they will never goto theatres. Viewing habit is getting spoilt. The theatres are not getting the footfalls – it is not being able to make the huge mall rent,” wrote Arati Kadav, adding at the end of the thread, “So net net, there is no money being generated and now money for the artists (source) are drying up – till hopefully a correction happens.”

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In November, Arati Kadav was one of the 46 filmmakers who demanded fair access of their indie films in theatres today. The joint statement was in response to Kanu Behl’s critically acclaimed film Agra struggling to get enough screens across India. It released on the same day as Ajay Devgn-starrer romantic comedy De De Pyaar De 2.