With over 50 tamil movies, Amazon Prime Video which was launched in the country on Wednesday has found many takers for the regional content in their video library.
Superstar Rajinikanth’s latest release Kabali and actor Vijay’s last release Theri which were two of the biggest hits in 2016 have bagged exclusive releases on the video platform following a collaboration with Producer Kalaipuli S. Thanu.
The Vikram starrer Gemini , director Shankar’s Gentleman , Dhanush-starrer Pudupettai and other movies of Vijay and Ajith are among those available. Old Tamil classics such as the 1966 film ‘ Anbe Vaa ’ starring MGR and Saroja Devi, and the famous comedy film Kaseydhaan Kadavuladaa are available for viewing.
While there have been attempts in the past to release Tamil movies through platforms such as DTH, it is yet to be seen if filmmakers from Kollywood will be ready to collaborate with a subscription-based service such as this to simultaneously release their movies online or on web platforms soon after theatrical release, to prevent piracy.
“It was previously tough to find original CDs or uploads of many regional movies that are now available on Amazon prime. As far as Tamil movies go, this is a good head start for making Tamil content available online legitimately,” said Sai Adithya, a business development executive.
While Prime video’s rival Netflix, which was made available in India over a year ago has O Kadhal Kanmani and the critically acclaimed Visaaranai ’ the home-grown Hotstar service has a wider selection of Tamil movies.
“Since the platform has collaborated with the likes of Anurag Kashyap and Farhan Akhtar for creating original content, we are hoping that there will be similar collaborations soon with makers from Kollywood. Web series and mini-series in Tamil will make for interesting viewing as there is a severe dearth of such content online,” noted S. Shweta, a student.
