Abhishek Bachchan: Focus of the audience had unfortunately become about box office

Abhishek Bachchan’s last five consecutive releases all came out when the Covid pandemic hit us. Ludo, The Big Bull, Breathe- Into The Shadows, Bob Biswas and recently, Dasvi all released directly on the web, barring Breathe which was a web show to begin with.

While theatres are back on track, so is the talk around box office figures. The 46-year-old was not bothered though when his films had to head the OTT way. “I am an actor, my job is to act. Obviously, we love to be on the big screen, but I think a huge advantage of being on a streaming platform is the kind of reach you have. The audience here is far more than theatres,” he shares.

He goes on to add that the penetration of the film to the interior parts is fantastic. “Be it Ludo, The Big Bull… what I heard for Dasvi was that 400 million people were going to have access to it on the web. At the push of a button, or in the palm of your hand. Even if for the sake of debate, 10 percent of that number decided to see it in theatres, that’s 40 million. Take the average ticket price which is ₹120 in India, you do the math. The figure is mind boggling. They are right there, the kind of people who are going to watch the film,” Bachchan reasons. He will next be seen in the third season of Breathe.

What had started happening a few years back, and continues to even now, is that even the common people who form a film’s audience, had started rating a film on the basis of it’s collections. “How nice that OTT platforms don’t release this data. The focus of the audience, unfortunately over time had become about box office. For the longest time before, for 80-90 years, it was whether the film is good or not. The number of days a theatre ran was the focus, and it was an after effect of whether the film is good or not,” he recalls.