John Abraham reveals real reason why he didn't want OTT release for 'Mumbai Saga'

After Roohi, John Abraham and Emraan Hashmi's highly-anticipated film Mumbai Saga is all set to hit the silver screen on March 19, 2021. Along with being one of the leading men of this action crime thriller, John also played a crucial role in ensuring that this Sanjay Gupta directorial didn't take the OTT route and the makers stuck to its theatrical release. In a recent interview with Mid-Day, the Batla House actor said that he and team Mumbai Saga are not afraid of the film's failure and weren't willing to use the COVID-19 pandemic as a crutch because, according to him, "90 per cent" of the films that released on streaming platforms were "bad". 

John Abraham on why he didn't let the makers release 'Mumbai Saga' on OTT

John Abraham, Emraan Hashmi, Suneil Shetty and Kajal Aggarwal's Mumbai Saga release date is just around the corner and the film's tickets are also open for advance booking now. Ahead of the film's release on the big screen on March 19, lead actor John Abraham sat down for a promotional interview with Mid-Day. In his interaction with the media portal, the 48-year-old spilt the beans on having a word with director Sanjay Gupta and producer Bhushan Kumar when he heard there were talks about Mumbai Saga's direct-to-digital release on Amazon Prime Video.  

Although John is confident about the upcoming action thriller's theatrical release being the right move, he is also aware of the fact that it won't make as much money as a movie did in 2019 (pre-pandemic). He told the portal that while all the theatres across the country have not re-opened, a few more will with the release of Mumbai Saga. During his interaction, the Pagalpanti actor also spoke about a common film industry notion.

John said when an actor is not confident about their film, they dump it on OTT. He also went on to add saying 90 per cent of the films that opted for a direct-to-digital release were bad. Talking about his own upcoming film, the Satyameva Jayate star explained that he and team Mumbai Saga aren't worried about the film's failure at the box office but because of that, they didn't want to "use the pandemic as a crutch" and opt for an OTT release.