Direct to digital releases have become common these days. Be it Ajay Devgn, Akshay Kumar, or even Salman Khan, their films have adopted the digital path and not wait for the theatres to open. Come to think of it, the decision to go ahead with this route is understandable considering the shadow of the pandemic over the opening of the theatres across India, and more importantly, there isn’t any timeline to it. While all the big-wigs are opting for OTT release, one man who has stood with the distributors like a rock is Aditya Chopra. He has held his movies like Jayeshbhai Jordaar, Bunty Aur Babli 2, Prithviraj, and Shamshera for over 18 months and is in no way going ahead with any digital premieres for them. As per a source, Yash Raj Studios has received multiple offers from almost all the OTT giants, but Aditya has been clear on the fact that his films are meant for the big screen and therefore has rejected all the proposals. Amazon Prime Video, after the second wave of the pandemic, gave a pretty lucrative offer to the production house which was to the tune of Rs.400 crore for 4 films. However, no thought was given from Chopra on this, and his answer was a straight no. The source adds that the OTT giant realized that the production house is in no mood to sell magnum opus like Shamshera and Prithviraj and hence decided to buy smaller films like Jayeshbhai Jordaar and Bunty Aur Babli 2, but the answer was again a firm no. Come to think of it, Yash Raj did not sell Sandeep Aur Pinki Faraar to OTT, so considering a digital release for Bunty and Jayeshbhai was out of the question. The fact is that all Yash Raj movies are meant for theatrical release and shall hit the big screen once theatres re-open in Maharashtra.
