In the footsteps of Zita and Gita – Newspaper Kommersant No. 56 (7501) dated 04/01/2023

The number of views of Indian films in Russian online cinemas increased by 10-12% in February. The point is not that the Russian audience has changed its preferences, but in the almost complete absence of Hollywood novelties: it is significant that offline movie theater fees soared during the days of the premiere of John Wick 4.

The interest of Russians in the series and films of Indian film studios is growing, two Kommersant sources say in online cinemas. According to one of them, views of Indian content on the sites grew in February by 10-12% year-on-year. There are no problems with it in the libraries of online cinemas. There are 17 Indian films and series on Kinopoisk, including the blockbuster Brahmastra Part 1: Shiva. Start and Amediateka declined to comment. Okko did not respond to a request. Wink has 37 films as well as 70 more series. “The audience for Indian content is loyal, constant, and growing smoothly,” Wink says. According to them, the most popular films of 2022 on the platform are “RRR: Revolution Roars Nearby”, “Squad”, “Uri: Base Attack”, “Hacking”. “Of course, Kinopoisk and KION have an increase in demand for this content now compared to the same period last year,” confirms Dmitry Kolesov, director of the new technologies department at J’son and Partners Consulting.

However, it should be understood that Indian cinema is only a few percent of the total content of libraries, says Mr. Kolesov. “There is an increase in interest in individual titles, but this is not a defining trend, not such that all libraries suddenly become Indian, Korean or Turkish,” he adds.

Now the main task for online platforms is to replace the unrelenting demand for Hollywood content and European cinema, Mr. Kolesov points out. After the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, many foreign streaming platforms left Russia, including Netflix. At the same time, major Hollywood rights holders Universal, Disney, Sony, Warner and others have suspended operations in the country and have begun revoking their film licenses. This led to an influx of users to pirated video services (see Kommersant of January 25). Many online cinemas are trying to diversify content as much as possible in order to retain the user and prevent him from going to pirate platforms, the interlocutor of Kommersant in the market confirms the trend. This is expressed not only in the increase in the production of original content, but also in the expansion of the catalog due to Indian and Asian novelties in general.

The fact that the tastes of Russian viewers have not changed over the past year is evidenced by the box office statistics of offline cinemas. As a result of the weekend of March 24–26, when the premiere of Hollywood’s John Wick 4 took place, the fees jumped by 52% compared to the previous weekend, to 655 million rubles. The film itself topped the box office, collecting 302.5 million rubles over the weekend.

Julia Yurasova