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Akshay Kumar is managing the theatrical and OTT releases for his films like no one else. His espionage thriller Bell Bottom and commercial entertainer Sooryavanshi were among the first big movies to be released in cinemas post the first and second waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, helping the exhibition sector revive their business. At the same time, he also opted for direct-to-web releases for his horror-comedy Laxmii and the Aanand L. Rai-directed Atrangi Re. Now, Peepingmoon.com has learned that the superstar has chosen the OTT path for one more project as a follow-up to his forthcoming two films, Bachchhan Paandey and Prithviraj, which are set to release in theatres soon.
Industry sources have informed us that Akshay Kumar’s psychological thriller, tentatively titled Mission Cinderella, will skip the theatrical release and premiere directly on Disney+Hotstar. The OTT giant is said to have bagged the film’s streaming rights at a humongous price and is planning to release it during the Eid weekend in May 2022. "The emergence of OTT platforms has changed the consumption pattern of audiences. They are now going to theatres only for big-scale massey movies and watching psychological and niche genre movies on the screens of their phones and laptops. Akshay believes his film with Ranjit M. Tewary falls in the category of the latter and hence decided to give it a digital release as that would give the film more eyeballs, "a source close to the development told us.
The Vashu Bhagnani production is a psycho investigative thriller and sees Akshay playing a cop trying to track down a mysterious killer who targets school girls and murders them brutally. It’s the official remake of Vishnu Vishal’s 2018 Tamil film, Ratsasan, highly acclaimed for its gripping and engaging screenplay, a terrific score, and superlative performances by the lead actors. The remake, called Production No. 41 by Pooja Entertainment, also stars Rakul Preet Singh as the leading lady. It went on floors in August and was wrapped up in October 2021 after shooting it majorly in Budapest, the UK and Mumbai. The film is Bhagnani’s second production to be released on OTT after Varun Dhawan-Sara Ali Khan’s highly-criticized Coolie No.1.
