Monthly Archives: September 2021

Late 2021/Early 2022 Release Calendar Update

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Almost as soon as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra announced that cinema halls will reopen on October 22, studios set about claiming prime weekends, filling up the release calendar through April 2022 in no time. This meant shifting around some titles that haven’t completed production yet, including Aamir Khan’s Forrest Gump remake Laal Singh Chaddha, which abandoned Christmas 2021 and moved back to Valentine’s Day 2022. Ranveer Singh’s cricket biopic 83 quickly took its place, locking this Christmas Eve for its cinematic debut.

Of course, the current release schedule could be moot if a COVID resurgence forces Mumbai theaters to close again. Akshay Kumar noted that the biggest risk when BellBottom released on August 19 — while theaters in Mumbai were closed — is that 30% of most Hindi films’ revenue comes from theaters in Maharashtra state. Many production houses have shown themselves willing to wait for favorable theatrical conditions to release their movies rather than take quick money for a streaming service debut.

Check out my full release calendar for all of the newly announced dates for the Hindi movies that I believe are likely to open in theaters in the United States. While you’re there, scroll down to see all of the movies that had previously announced theatrical release dates but have not yet rescheduled. Right now, Nikamma is the Bollywood movie that’s been waiting the longest for a release. It was originally supposed to hit theaters on June 5, 2020! I’ll update the page as more titles from the “Postponed” section announce their new dates.

Streaming Video News: September 24, 2021

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I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with today’s premiere of Season 2 of Kota Factory. On Wednesday, Netflix debuted its Original Kannada docu-series Crime Patrol: Indian Detectives, which has dubbed audio options in English and Hindi. Other additions from earlier in the week include the late-’90s Tamil films Avvai Shanmughi, Jeans, and Minsara Kanavu.

Nineteen Punjabi movies expire from Netflix on October 1. That’s half of Netflix’s current Punjabi-language catalog. For the full list of all of the Indian titles expiring in October, check out the “Expiring Soon” section near the top of my Netflix page.

I also updated my list of Bollywood movies on Amazon Prime with yesterday’s debut of the Tamil film Raame Aandalum Raavane Aandalum.

Today, Amazon announced its festive season lineup of big Indian (and English) titles releasing over the next couple of months. Sardar Udham (Hindi) and Udan Pirappe (Tamil) are set to debut in October, with Jai Bhim (Tamil) coming in November. Release dates for the rest of the titles — including the Malayalam movie Bhramam, Season 2 of One Mic Stand, and Dybbuk, the Hindi remake of the Malayalam film Ezra — have yet to be announced.[Disclaimer: my Amazon links include an affiliate tag, and I may earn a commission on purchases made via those links. Thanks for helping to support this website!]

Streaming Video News: September 17, 2021

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I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with today’s addition of the Netflix Original film Ankahi Kahaniya, an anthology of three shorts directed by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, Abhishek Chaubey, and Saket Chaudhury. This week also saw the return of the series Dharmakshetra, Raja Rasoi Aur Anya Kahaniyan, and Stories by Rabindranath Tagore.

I also updated my list of Bollywood movies on Amazon Prime because Akshay Kumar’s August theatrical release BellBottom is now available for streaming.

Finally, I finished adding all of the Hotstar content currently available on Hulu in all languages to my new list of Bollywood movies on Hulu. For now, the only sizable movie catalogs are in Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu, with the Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, and Marathi catalogs consisting almost entirely of “Hotstar Specials” releases. It’s worth noting that dozens of the movies listed as currently streaming in the United States on this list from Hotstar aren’t actually available. We’ll see if they’re added over time.

Today’s new additions to Hulu/Hotstar are the new Telugu movie Maestro and the Tamil film Annabelle Sethupathi, which is also available in dubbed versions in Kannada, Telugu, and Hindi (under the title Annabelle Rathore).

[Disclaimer: my Amazon links include an affiliate tag, and I may earn a commission on purchases made via those links. Thanks for helping to support this website!]

New Indian Movies on Hulu Page

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I created a new page listing all of the Indian movies and Hotstar Specials on Hulu. Actually, I just resurrected my old Bollywood Movies on Hulu page from 2016, when Hulu jettisoned all of its Indian content. The revived page now has all of the content that Hulu recently acquired from Hotstar. You can find links to the new page at the top of the site and in the right sidebar.

For right now, it’s just the Hindi films and Hotstar Specials (“Hotstar Specials” being their term for original movies and TV series). But I’ll add links to content in other languages over the course of time.

You’ve probably noticed, Hulu’s site is annoying to navigate and takes forever to load. Well, I have to tell you — I don’t have any special means of getting the information from Hulu. No scripts or web scrapers to grab content. It’s just me copying and pasting links and titles over and over for hours at a time — all in an effort to make it quicker and easier for fans to see what Indian movies are available on Hulu.

If you appreciate my efforts, please consider sending me a donation via PayPal. If your company or organization would like to sponsor this Hulu page or another page at Access Bollywood, please email me at accessbolly at gmail dot com.

Thanks! I hope you find this new page useful! — Kathy

Hotstar Content Moves to Hulu and ESPN+ in US

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Hotstar’s days as a standalone streaming service are numbered in the United States. Disney — who owns Hotstar — announced Tuesday, September 1 that Hotstar’s content would be incorporated into its other streaming services before shutting down for good late in 2022. Hulu will carry Hotstar’s movies and TV series, while ESPN+ will take over Hotstar’s sports programming.

The content shift is already underway. @parikhm on Twitter sent me this screenshot from Hulu on Wednesday, with a panel advertising Hotstar content under the “Hubs” link at the top of the page.

We got even more information today via an email sent to Hotstar subscribers. In addition to sending each subscriber an offer code to upgrade to the Disney bundle (more on that in a bit), the email linked to a page listing all of the movies in Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu that are already available on Hulu — find them under the “A-Z” category at the bottom of this page — as well as those films that are “coming soon.” (There are specific pages for TV shows, sports tournaments, and Hotstar Specials as well.) While most movies will make the journey to Hulu, not all will. Notable titles absent from the list include Highway, Junglee, and my beloved Creature 3D.

The movies and shows that have already moved to Hulu are no longer available on Hotstar. Clicking on Bhuj: The Pride of India‘s Hotstar link returns a 404 error. I assume this means that Bhoot Police will release on Hulu and not Hotstar on September 17. When the Indian Premier League cricket season resumes on September 19, ESPN+ will carry the games, not Hotstar.

Considering that Hotstar subscribers would need both Hulu and ESPN+ to access all (well, most) of the content previously available on Hotstar, today’s email includes an offer code allowing users to access the Disney bundle — which includes ad-supported Hulu, ESPN+, and Disney+ — for the remainder of their Hotstar subscription. Getting access to all of the other Hulu and ESPN+ content plus Disney+ is a nice bonus, especially if your Hotstar subscription renewed recently. A year’s subscription to Hotstar costs $49.99, while a year’s worth of the $13.99/month Disney bundle will set you back $167.88 in total.

There’s the rub. Splitting Hotstar’s content between Hulu and ESPN+ is ultimately going to cost customers a lot more: 3x as much for the lower-tier Disney Bundle, and almost 5x as much if you want the $19.99/month Disney bundle that includes the ad-free version of Hulu ($239.88 annually).

The forced price increase is unfortunate, but par for the course for Disney in recent weeks. From charging visitors to Disney theme parks to skip the standby line at attractions (a formerly free perk) to jacking up the prices of annual passes while stripping benefits, Disney is doing all it can to squeeze every penny out of its customers.

So what are the alternatives? If you only subscribed to Hotstar for the movies and shows, a standalone Hulu subscription with ads costs $5.99/month or $59.99/year, or $11.99/month without ads ($143.88 total for one year, with no annual subscription option). [Update: on October 8, 2021, the price of ad-supported Hulu will increase to $6.99/month or $69.99/year, and ad-free Hulu increases to $12.99/month.] If you’re only interested in cricket, ESPN+ costs $6.99/month or $69.99/year. You’re still going to pay more that you have been with Hotstar, unfortunately. If you wanted to recreate Hotstar by getting annual subscriptions to both EPSN+ and (ad-supported) Hulu, it’ll run you $129.98 — almost $40 cheaper than the Disney Bundle.

For now, this merger only applies to the US. Canada doesn’t even have access to Hulu, so Hotstar lives on north of the border for the time being. In the meantime, I’m gonna rewatch Creature 3D for the millionth time while I still can.