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Is Theatre business so successful?

By:  Tupaki Desk   |   5 Dec 2018 12:53 PM GMT
Is Theatre business so successful?
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We have witnessed a huge amount of press coverage for Mahesh Babu getting into Multiplex business in association with Asian chain and his other friends. Recently, AMB Cinemas opened in Hyderabad and it is receiving praises for Laser projection facility and sound system. It also has a special screen for ViPs, it seems.

Now, the latest is that Allu Arjun is also entering the theater business and he is looking to renovate Ameerpet Sathyam theatres in association with Asian again.

This has sprung up a question among the common audience, Is Theater business that successful?

Not long ago, many single screens had to shut down, due to less occupancy and the obvious, less number of successful films coming out from TFI.

Piracy made the situation even worse and many popular theatre chains have gone out of business or got converted into big function halls.

Remaining few depended on big production houses and wealthy distributors to renovate and get back into reckoning.

The surge in multiplexes has further affected the single screen business and movie viewing has become a big task for normal audiences too.

They decided to pick and choose better theatrical experiences in multiplexes and are preferring to spend Rs.1000/- for one or two films at multiplexes per month. Openly they are posting film piracy links and even sharing their opinion on quality of the video print available on online.

The interesting fact is that the major consumers of multiplexes like IT employees are pioneering in sharing the good quality piracy links as soon as they can find them.

With so many multiplexes opening in the Metros, audiences are trying to find out which one better quality, less expensive food with more options and more importantly the distance from their respective homes.

If they have to travel more than 5 or 10 km, people are feeling it has waste of time and preferring to go to a mall, instead of multiplexes to catch up with movies.

This is one of the big reasons, for Geetha Govindam, Rangasthalam, Mahanati which got overwhelming positive talk to show never before seen revenues for their respective genres while Bharat Ane Nenu, 2.0, Aravindha Sametha after first weekend had to run with 50%-60% occupancies even though they could get modest positive talk.

The average film watching demographic is changing with each year and youngsters are happy to spend Rs. 250/- or 350/- once a month at the best possible screen for one movie, only.

Even the increase in rates have added to the overall decline in people showing up at theaters. In towns and cities, where the ticket price is more than Rs.120/-, weekdays are registering record low grosses.

This resulted in directors YVS Chowdary and V.V.Vinayak, who entered the theater business before, to hand over their theatres to other big chains, it seems.

Now, in such situation, Mahesh Babu and Allu Arjun entering into own theater business has made look into the business model they are coming up with seriously! They are looking at mixing up the best possible experience providing screens with normal screens.

Still, with even more multiplexes set to open in Hyderabad in 2019 and 2020, with every average viewer finding a multiplex screen within 3-5 km radius, can their model be extremely successful?

We have to wait and see. But if this makes them to work with better technically sound directors and content oriented films, we should welcome the competition, don't we?!