Wiser and smarter after spending years in Bollywood and delivering multiple consecutive biggies, Kartik Aaryan certainly knows what he is talking and what he is selling. The testimony to that is Dhamaka which is the biggest OTT original to have come out of the Indian film industry and stays on to be a top trending film on the digital medium. What makes it further special is the fact that the suspense drama thriller has arrived at a time when theatres are back to bring open, as a result of which at least four major films are already playing on screen.
“Dhamaka released two weeks after Sooryavanshi and let’s admit it, the arrival of the Akshay Kumar and Rohit Shetty film resulted in a lot of diversion of attention from OTT back to theatres. A market that was really hot for the last 20 months during the pandemic saw a shift in attention since theatres, which have lived on for over 100 years, were back in action. But naturally, the task was cut out for Dhamaka to still go ahead and make an impression,” says a trade expert.
It’s to the credit of Kartik Aaryan that he came up with quite a few marketing ideas that kept the flag high for Dhamaka despite the fact that Sooryavanshi wave had caught up well already and Bunty Aur Babli 2 theatrical release was planned on the same date as its digital premiere, 19th November.
“With due credit to the Saif Ali Khan and Rani Mukherji starrer, it was Dhamaka that managed to find more traction amongst the audience, especially the urban segment which watches premium content on Netflix,” the expert adds, “No wonder, it was the top trending film soon and was raking in great numbers for the channel.”
Just like theatrical releases, even OTT releases are known to have an opening per se and then fizzle away soon if the response is not that great. However, Dhanaka had good content by Ram Madhvani coupled with career best performance by Kartik Aaryan and that allowed it to retain its number one spot right through the first week.
“Audiences now had all the more options available for them from the Friday fine by, be it Antim – The Final Truth or Satyameva Jayate 2. Though former is still managing to do well at the box office, Dhamaka isn’t slowing down. In fact the only movie that has now found the top spot on Netflix is Annatthe and considering the fact that it has Rajinikanth calling the shots, it’s a matter of honour to be placed immediately after that since the competition is from a legend no less,” an industry insider comments.
No wonder, Kartik Aaryan is happy that his conviction in the film and the platform paid off as after completing it on record time of 10 days, he then went on to invest his energy into strategising the promotion and marketing along with the capable team and ensured that Dhamaka was one of the most talked about movie not just on its release but 10 days post that as well.
Even though theatrical releases would continue to flow from this point on, one now waits to see what’s the kind of distance that Dhamaka covers in the trending charts in weeks to come.
