The advent of the digital space has made it all the more easy for film industry bigwigs to tell the stories that they want, even if multiple people are trying to tell the same story.
For example, the stock market scam perpetrated by the late stockbroker Harshad Mehta has been picked up as the subject for Abhishek Bachchan’s upcoming film The Bigg Bull, as well as a web series called The Bull Of Dalal Street starring Ashmit Patel and Iqbal Khan among others.
“The the web has given a quick answer to projects that want to come soon, without waiting for a telecast time on a channel or the wait for an appropriate release date. Hence, a lot of projects that are being made need not necessarily be just films; it can be in the form of a web series and a web film itself. So it does not directly compete or eat into the business of the other project of the same subject,” explains Atul Mohan, Editor of Complete Cinema.
If Akshay Kumar’s Kesari was beaten to the post by a TV series 21 Saragarhi starring Mohit Raina, Kangana Ranaut’s Manikarnika was edged out by a TV series on the Rani of Jhansi. The web series and the film on Narendra Modi came around the same time due to the dictates of the Election Commission of India.
Similarly, Akshay Kumar’s Mission Mangal came in August 2019 just as Ekta Kapoor’s web series on India’s Mars orbit misson with four women called Mission Over Mars (MOM) — starring Balaji favourites Sakshi Talwar and Mona Singh along with Nidhi Singh and Palomi Ghosh —came onto the web platform. “When Batman came in the US as a film, a show called Gotham also came. Since all the characters of Batman became famous, it did help Gotham do well,” explains Ekta about how the content can co-exist and perhaps even be symbiotic.
