Salman Khan Films (SKF) has reportedly sold the rights of Radhe: Your Most Wanted Bhai to Zee Studios for Rs 230 crores, in what is one of the biggest deals signed in Bollywood. The Salman Khan-starrer was scheduled to release on Eid 2020 but filming was interrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic and only wrapped on 14 October.
Reports also suggest that Salman Khan's production house has signed a blanket deal with Zee Studios for other SKF productions, such as Pankaj Tripathi-starrer Kaagaz, which will premiere on Zee5. Salman's last few releases, like Race 3, Bharat and Dabangg 3, have also premiered on Zee television channels after their theatrical releases.
According to reports, Khan was of the opinion that having all rights under one umbrella would make decision-making simpler for the team.
“YRF had entered into an agreement with Salman Khan Films (SKF) to distribute the film globally on a commission basis, which meant that the income for SKF would vary according to the business the film does theatrically. There is always an element of uncertainty in such deals, particularly in times of the COVID-19 pandemic, as one can’t be sure about the footfalls and thereby returns from cinema halls. On the other hand, he had entered into a digital deal with Amazon, who had exclusive streaming rights for the film, eight weeks after its theatrical release. The satellite rights were with Zee, who could premiere it on their channel 8 weeks after the OTT premiere, and music rights were with T-Series,” a source told Bollywood Hungama.
The source added, “It’s always better to have all rights sold to the same studio as that makes the recovery model easier. Salman and Aditya Chopra spoke on this and mutually decided to part ways before they collaborated again on Tiger 3 in March. Chopra understands business better than anyone else in the industry and gave him his nod. While Salman got an upfront amount of Rs 230 crores, making him earn a table profit of over Rs. 100 crores, the studio now has all the rights thereby opening up various modes of revenue – ranging from satellite revenues from advertisers, OTT revenue from Zee 5, monetisation of advertisement revenue from YouTube and other music apps."
If the theatres continue to run on low occupancy till Eid 2021, Zee Studios can always opt for the hybrid release model for Radhe – by bringing it on OTT platform within 2 to 3 weeks after the theatrical release.
(Source: Bollywood Hungama)
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