Dharma movies on Facebook

A total of 15 films from the production house have been made available on the company's Facebook page for paid streaming.

The Karan Johar-owned Dharma Productions has pioneered a new platform for watching movies. The production house has partnered Walla Movie Streaming service to provide paid movie streaming on the company's
Facebook page
.

A total of 15 films are now available as a part of the first phase launch including blockbuster movies such as Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Student of the Year, Agneepath, Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani. These films will be available for viewing in India and 150 other countries including the US, UK, Canada and Australia. In India, the movies are priced between Rs 120 and Rs 150 depending on the age of the titles.

The page has so far crossed 2,603,763 fans on Facebook and according to SocialBakers, the top five countries subscribing to this page are India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka respectively. The US constitutes 1.3 per cent of the total fan base of the page whereas the UK accounts for 0.6 per cent. Canada has 0.3 per cent of fans.

With this activity, the production house is looking at engaging with 1.3 billion active Facebook users across the 150 countries, which could provide a big leap towards popularising Indian cinema and entertaining more and more people across the globe.

Speaking to afaqs! about the activity, Apoorva Mehta, CEO, Dharma Productions, says, "In the past, movie watching was a social activity, now it's become more personal. People like to watch films at home, at their own behest. And with people spending most of their online time on platforms like Facebook, it made sense to bring our films to the 20 million plus fans already there."

Dharma also operates a YouTube channel, which is subscribed by 326,116 fans, and the movies are available on YouTube for rentals. So far, the YouTube channel of Dharma has videos like songs, the making and deleted scenes from its movies. Adds Mehta, "The endeavour of the company always is to try and reach out to a wider demographic base. It always feels great to see people from across the globe and all age groups engaging on our movie platforms online."

Dharma Productions was founded by Yash Johar in 1976. It is now headed by his son Karan Johar after the death of the former in 2004. Notable films produced by the company include Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998), Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham... (2001), Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003), My Name Is Khan (2010), The Lunchbox (2013) and 2 States (2014).