Vijayapura: Despite relaxations offered to cinema halls to operate with 50 per cent capacity since the middle of October, a majority of the cinema halls in the district continue to remain shut.
Only a couple of theatres opened in the first week of November and the remaining are yet to open. Theatres that have dared to open are showing old and popular movies with a few recently released blockbuster films, but are struggling to get a decent number of customers.
Shravankumar Mahindrakar, proprietor of Apsara Cineplex said that they thought that they would receive a good response from the movie enthusiasts as the theatres had opened after seven months of being shut due to the pandemic, but to their disappointment, the turnout is scanty. With each show, the numbers are dwindling. Shravankumar thinks that the fear of getting the virus is preventing people from coming to the theatres.
“Because of multiple factors, we are facing to attract an audience after the unlock. One is the producers of big movies are hesitating to release movies fearing losses. Second is the small movie producers are releasing their movies on OTT platforms instead of doing so in theatres. The third is that the younger generation prefers to watch movies on OTT platforms rather than in theatres,” explained Mahindrakar, who has been running a theatre for the past five decades.
The city has six main theatres. One of them had to shut down permanently, two are functioning with limited turnout. and the rest are still mulling over opening their doors.
Ramesh Rayakar, the proprietor of Laxmi Theaters pointed out, “The theatres bring good revenue to the government during the season but it has completely failed to come to the rescue of the theatre proprietors. The state government has announced Covid relief to many sectors but failed to announce anything for cinema halls. While the theatres are struggling to earn enough revenue, the government has increased the license fee. This is unacceptable during a pandemic. The cinema halls are running under enormous difficulty; the government has to come to the rescue.”
Less than 5 per cent of movie enthusiasts are turning up to the cinema halls. The salaries of workers have been reduced to fifty per cent due to the failing finances.
Meanwhile, moviegoers said, “After seven months, I went to the cinema hall to watch a new movie, but I was disappointed to know that the cinema halls were forced to cancel the shows because of a lack of audience. The feel of watching movies in theatres is not be the same on the OTT platforms.”
