Weekend Peak-Geek: How Game of Thrones and Avengers: Endgame Change the Landscape of Pop Culture in India



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The geek pic weekend has arrived! The latest installment of the Avengers series, Avengers: Endgame is on the screens today and Sunday evening (Monday morning for us in India), the highly anticipated Game episode of Thrones "The Battle of Winterfell" will be broadcast.

Nothing will be more like before. The MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe), as we know it, will end, leaving behind a giant crater in the popular cultural landscape, which will be difficult to fill. Of course, we will still have the climax of Game of Thrones -with impatience, but with the count of the dead that the upcoming episode has the potential to go up, let's say that on Monday , presumably, to be really brutal.

It is interesting to note however that in just 11 years (Marvel published Iron Man in 2008, and that's when it all started), we are all become such addicts of geek culture in India.
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We have come to love comic-based movies (which most of us have not read yet), to venerate superheroes, to remember their complicated stories and to become experts in the field. of world travels and theories of fans. We, who make fun of films like Naagin Jaani Dushman: Ek Anokhi Kahani and Veerana are so hooked to . The game of Thrones . We were eagerly awaiting a weekly series on dragons, witches and the undead (or white walkers, as we call them). When did it really happen? When has geek culture become synonymous with popular culture in India? Why do you say, "I've never watched Game of Thrones ", people will look at you with astonishment and a hint of judgment, or why you can never say that you're not sure you're going to see it. Are not you a fan of Marvel, without attracting some hatred on online platforms?
Although it is difficult to determine the exact moment when these series and these geek movies have taken precedence over India (especially urban cities), it is fair to say that today # 1945 Game of Thrones and Avengers movies are more traditional than Bollywood cinema. In fact, they are so popular that even the holy trinity of the Khans would not risk a clash of release dates with the Avengers. Bookmyshow alone sold 2.5 million Avengers: Endgame tickets in advance. 18 tickets would be sold every second. This story of hysteria about a movie, especially a Hollywood movie, has never happened before in Indian history.

While the first superhero that India liked was SpiderMan (the former, along with Tobey Maguire), other sci-fi movies, which have popularized the geekdom in the West, have had little success in our country. The 42-year-old Star Wars cult franchise – which represents a huge market in the United States – could never hold the interest of the Indian public and therefore never handle more than dedicated followers. Tolkien's magnum opus, The Lord of the Rings did not really blow up the bank either. But Marvel's superheroes have managed to make thousands of fans in India, and the credit goes not only to the brilliant storytelling of the producers, or the brilliant cast of the film, which is almost half of Hollywood, but also to their marketing. strategy. While Marvel still targets the urban Indian audience and the majority of tickets are sold in metropolitan cities with multiplexes and stainless steel theaters, the Marvel gods have not forgotten the small towns of India. Numerous projections are dubbed in Tamil, Hindi and Telegu to access the regional Indian market. In fact, India would be one of the fastest growing markets for Marvel in the world.

Indian Marvel fans are so invested in movies that nobody wants to leave the MCU for now. While it was once foolish to be stereotyped as a geek or a geek, thanks to the geek culture that fits, people wear their geekiness on their sleeves. Myntra, the fashion ecommerce company, announced a 20% increase in sales on all Avengers merchandise just before Endgame . Similarly, a Mumbai-based company, RedWolf, reportedly saw a 300% increase in sales of Game of Thrones merchandise in the eighth and final seasons of the series.

Many young urban Indians began watching Game of Thrones in India long before Hotstar arrived. At the time, the only way to watch the series was to download illegally and it seems like it has not stopped since. According to a 2019 report published by Digital India the first episode of season 8 of the show was hacked 55 million times, in the first 24 hours, 18% of the illegal audience being from India. This is the largest number of illegal viewers from all countries. Hotstar, however, is doing good business with the online broadcast of the current Game of Thrones season. Just before the first broadcast of the season, the OTT platform has pbaded the 300 million active viewers per month.

In fact, the Indians had been splurking in shows such as GoT and movies like Marvel buying goods for them, buying expensive 3D movie tickets and getting subscriptions to online platforms. Marvel movie tickets are always more expensive and now, with the latest film coming, the film will be screened 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to meet public demand, and prices are not going down. But the big question is what happens when the Marvel movies are over, as is Game of Thrones ? At the end of the nine kingdoms of MCU and the seven kingdoms of Game of Thrones where are the geeks going?

The most important investment for fans of larger than life fantasies has not been financial but emotional. After seven long seasons to hear as winter approaches, Winter is finally at Winterfell, and after 21 films in MCU, we are now in the final stages. It's really the pinnacle of geek culture and after the end of these two series, popular culture may switch from fantasy, because all good is already done. Marvel may be broadcasting obscure superheroes on Disney +, while HBO will be looking for the next best show after the end of its most profitable show.

But what about fans? Will they pbad? Will there be better things to do for the geekdom? Only time will tell. But, for the moment, embrace your innate nervousness and enjoy this weekend.

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