Era of Jubilees

Era of   Jubilees

 

Ganesh, Shalimar, Chamundeshwari, Rathna, Vidyaranya, Ranjith, Opera, Olympia, Shanthala, Padma ………..One after the other single screen cinemas in Mysore are shutting down.  Others are struggling to survive. The story is the same in other states too.

 

.The trend of multiplexes started more than two decades ago when a certain   Priya Village Road show redefined movie-watching experience by converting Delhi’s  Anupam cinema   into India’s first four-screen multiplex. Soon, others followed.

 Chains, like PVR, CINEMAX, INOX, and CARNIVAL have added number of screens

This proliferation of fashionable upmarket smaller screens has forced the struggling single screen cinemas into oblivion

. However, there are some cinema halls that have stood the test of time. & have retained their original form with some upgrades, in the fond hope that If the hall is rendered visually attractive and equipped with modern technology, the audience will return.

 Aging single screen theatres carry an air of glamour. They are cavernous with rows and rows of tightly packed seats.

  The first-day-first-show saw crowds that couldn’t be managed even by cops. The thrill while clambering up the iron grills and literally crawling over a sea of heads to squeeze in and jump the queue to get to the Rs.2.50 ticket counter was memorable adventure. None complained if watching the film from the front row because it accommodated the most gregarious and quick witted connoisseurs. The audience waited with bated breath for the curtain to wind up reveal the silver screen.

 “Standing outside the theatre in serpentine queues waiting for the counter to open was mandatory penance. The separate ladies line offered enough opportunity to snoop into tangy conversations,” guffaws an aging fan & remembers paper cones of groundnuts and soft drinks during the interval.

Others are in splits while narrating the bites of bugs crawling   under seat cushions and screaming at late-comers who blocked the view. All this was added excitement.

“Our generation witnessed the transition from black & white, colour, Cinema Scope, to 70mm in single screen theatres,” remarks a 53-year-old adding “Most enjoyable were the comments from the ‘Gandhi Class’. Once, while watching a popular movie  the  bald villain  mouthed a dialogue running his fingers on his  shining bald head ‘There is nothing I cannot do’ which drew an immediate response from the front benches :’ Try having a haircut ‘ “  !

All that has changed now. Single-screen halls with heritage facade are being threatened with extinction as they are increasingly being converted into multiplexes or Shopping arcades .The only illogical thing here is that this conceited scramble to get more and more shows is leaving the industry with fewer single-screens.

However, this trend is also to do with property values and growing list of government regulations. With soaring real estate prices single screens realized they are sitting on a gold mine. Given a chance they would convert their property into multiplexes or shopping malls. Over the past five years, the number of single-screen theatres has dwindled drastically.

Majority of Single screens are in south and a few are still holding out  retaining their unusual antiquated form  emphasizing a  distinct theatrical character adorned with huge cutouts  of ‘Heroes” .There was a time when audience numbers were so high for  Rajkumar, NTR ,MGR and Shivaji films,that  the Talkies were forced to accommodate 1,000 persons or so.

But today,  1,000-seat audience is a distant dream. Only the very big budget movie releases command the same. Between 200 and 350 seats are more than adequate to cater to the routine footfalls now.

Though the phenomenon of Box office figures has existed for a long time, they remained a subject of conversation within the trade. With the advent of Social media and Commercial News Channels, collection projections have become hot topic for ‘Breaking News” and prolonged panel discussions.

These days, the opening collection is announced by producers and box-office pundits at the end of the Opening Show  itself, in an attempt  whip up a frenzy  of the movie and to ensure the bustle  lingers long enough, aiding in larger revenue.

Distributors leverage their clout to get the best deal from exhibitors. The producer and distributors decide how many screens they want to target for a movie depending on the reputation of its production house.

In the prevailing trend of producer-distributor-exhibitor business chain the single-screen cinema owners are caught in a conundrum, not of their making & become victim of skewed policies, while multiplexes are too powerful to be intimidated.

Due to a combination of factors, like multiplexes, piracy, the rise of cable TV and now  OTT streaming services, the average occupancy of single screen  cinemas has come down to about 15%. To compound the problem, cinema owners are also struggling with a heavy multi point tax burden. “The average income for cinema owners is less than ₹ 3 per ticket after paying taxes, distributor and service providers’ fee” laments a veteran Exhibitor.

. If the government provides a different tax slab, concessions in the electricity tariff, rolls back astronomical Property tax and extends bank loan facilities for single-screen theatres, they may just manage to survive.

 One or the other old theatre is shut down every day due to lack of business. It is sad really, to watch audience getting increasingly isolated from what was once the epicentre of a movie watching experience.

“I’m going to enjoy every bit of whatever remains of these aging beauties, the single screen theatres before they fade away” says an avid moviegoer.