Until the pandemic hit the world in early 2020, things were vastly different, at least as far as the theatre culture in India, specifically in the Telugu states is concerned. Both big and small films always opted for a theatrical release, and even the audiences were welcoming such a thing. No matter what the scale of the movie is, and who its actors are, a film always turned out to be a box office success, if it had good content.
Post the pandemic though, things have changed vastly. Audiences are currently not willing to even turn up to the theatres, due to the pandemic scare, and mostly due to the OTT culture that has taken over everyone. Moreover, the Telugu states have been going through a ticket crisis, with Hyderabad seeing some of the costliest ticket prices in history, which has driven away a lot of audiences, who didn’t turn up as a result, even for big movies.
As such, small movies turned out to be major disasters at the box office. This seems to have more or less established the fact that small movies cannot continue to fare the same way they used to, before the pandemic. It does look as though the theatre culture has already changed forever.