Exhibitors were preparing for a busy month as August began. Both Laal Singh Chaddha by Aamir Khan and Raksha Bandhan by Akshay Kumar were anticipated to be huge box office successes. Sadly, neither movie was able to draw in audiences. The exhibition industry had hope since Vijay Deverakonda’s Liger was expected to be a lighthearted, entertaining production. The word of mouth, though, was awful. Despite holding through the weekends, it fell apart on Monday.
It was anticipated that these three movies would take up most of the screens in multiplexes. The theatres were forced to cut back on the amount of performances due to their poor performance. Other movies, including the Hollywood production Nope and the thriller Dobaaraa from Anurag Kashyap, failed to draw crowds as well. As a result, a number of theatres have chosen to turn some screens off. Many already have fewer shows.
As per reports, a source from the exhibition sector said, “When most films are not performing, it becomes difficult to keep so many screens operational. Sadly, many theatres can’t shut down screens as they have got the ad revenues for the week. So this week, they have reduced the number of shows per screen. From Friday, September 2, some multiplexes will close down some screens for the week.”
One theatre in Mumbai’s G7 multiplexes, also known as Gaiety-Galaxy, has already been temporarily closed. It has an about 800-seat Galaxy and a Gaiety with almost 1000 seats. Galaxy has been closed for almost a week since, except from Liger, no other movie could fill such a large theatre.
Hence, all eyes are on Brahmastra, which will be released next week. G7 has often played big films in both Gaiety and Galaxy. When asked if he’ll follow the same trend for Brahmastra, Manoj Desai retorted, “Nahi. Ek theatre mein chal jaaye, bahut badi baat hai!”
