With the Maharashtra government announcing reopening of movie theatres from October 22, president of Multiplex Association of India Kamal Gianchandani in an interview to CNN-News18 said it is a welcome move and will help the film business grow to the pre-Covid level.
Cinema halls, theatres have been shut in Maharashtra for the last 18 months except for a couple of months from November 2020 before the second wave hit the state. Gianchandani, who is also the CEO of PVR Cinemas, says film-makers are “confident that the next two to three months will be the busiest for our industry.”
The Maharashtra government is yet to announce SOPs for multiplexes and movie theatres.
Here are the excerpts from the interview:
How are exhibitors looking at the decision to reopen cinemas in Maharashtra? Is there a sense of relief or a mixed feeling?
There is a sense of joy that Maharashtra will reopen theatres. We’d like to thank our CM (Uddhav Thackeray) for being receptive and understanding the issue and taking this decision to reopen cinemas. Maharashtra is a critical part of a fully functional film industry, broadly it contributes 25% to 30% of the box office for a Hindi film. But also because the entire film industry is based here, it’s important at multiple levels not only financial and business levels, but emotional level too. So it’s important that a film gets a release in Maharashtra, in Mumbai from our creative partners’ point of view. It’s a very happy news and we are relieved that cinemas are reopening… the industry has taken it positively and it’s visible the way films are being announced in last 3 to 4 days one can say that next two to three months will be the busiest for our industry in many years.
SOPs for theatres are awaited, is there a sense of concern there? Stricter restrictions could mean less footfall?
Couple of points, we are reopening for the second time, we first reopened in November, 2020 at that time we were comfortable with the SOPs. I’m sure there will be some changes with the SOPs this time. Also, it’s important to know that we are reopening for the second time, and in some states cinemas are already functioning for a month, we are following the SOPs and we believe some SOPs are important at this point. We are comfortable with it… state governments have been pragmatic while drafting SOPs and don’t think the Maharashtra government’s SOPs will be any different. There has been lot of learnings in the last few months, the task force knows what works and what doesn’t, they are receptive to our point of view, so SOPs are not a concern but we will have to wait and watch what the SOPs will the Maharashtra government come up with.
Exhibitors are first to shut and last to open during the pandemic. Do you feel this announcement could have come a little early?
We are opening on October 22, what could have happened is a matter of conjecture– I think we should leave it at that.
How confident are you that the business will pick up amid certain restrictions and threat of a third wave? Also, any concern, challenges before reopening?
I think the industry is charged up and they want to leave behind these 18 months which have been tough for them. Leave the pandemic behind and look forward. And with the opening up of cinemas in northern and southern states, I can say we can see a lot of green shoots. A lot of Punjabi films, Shang-Chi (Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings) which is a Hollywood film, which released in India… Telugu films that have done extremely well at the box office, in fact they have fared better than what they would in pre-Covid times at the box office. Looking at data we see lot of green shoots. This is in spite of the capacity restrictions and a full-fledged flow of Hindi films. I think we are extremely confident. I think once films start releasing in full-flow with marketing and high decibel efforts in terms of releases, which is what we were used to pre-Covid, we will start seeing numbers, which will surprise a lot of people. And though it’s believed that 50% capacity is a dampener, which I agree 50% is not 100%. Having said that, cinemas operate at 30 to 33% occupancy on an annualised basis. In that context even 50% is sufficient to get started. After all, these capacity restrictions are temporary in nature –we’ve seen it in other states. Telangana, Rajasthan and Karnataka have gone 100%. So the point I’m trying to make is that a temporary measure of a 50% restriction is fine, we’ve seen several states relaxing their restrictions. We are confident about going forward with full force and we will see business that we’ve not seen in years.
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