India has a rich culture of theatre releases since the inception of Bollywood and movie lovers are continuing the legacy by being a part of this tradition. When the cinema came into existence, it focused more on the urban population but with the passage of time, there are has been tremendous increase in the number of cinema halls in the country. However, the pandemic has put some rest on the working of movie theatres across the nation.
People in India love to watch their favorite superstars on big screen and that is the reason the industry releases more than 2000 films per year. There is a competition between the fans to make their star’s movies super hit at the box-office. There was a time when Hum Apke Hain Kaun sold tickets in advance for almost 25 weeks and who can forget the epic run of DDLJ in Maratha Mandir, Mumbai. Going to cinema hall with friends or family is one of the favorite leisure activities of the people living in the country. However, the wave of covid-19 resulted in shutdown of the theatres which has impacted a lot people.
Huge Loss
The shutdown of the theatres and halls has resulted in the huge loss for producers and distributors. The owners of cinema halls have come together and demanded to open the theatre halls several times but the situation did not allow it. According to many, small movie theatres have not suffered a lot but multiplexes have lost significant amount of money.
Films in pipeline
Indian film industry produces more than 2000 films in a year but because of the pandemic, not a single big-budgeted movie got released. As a result, movies are waiting for their release and there has been lots of chaos over the date issues. After a hiatus of two years, Suryavanshi became the first bollywood big budgeted movie that got released in the theares and the results were overwhelming. However, the new wave of Covid-19 emerged few weeks after the release of the movie and again put several other movies on hold.
The shift
During the pandemic, the entertainment world has seen a major shift. People had nothing to do except sitting at homes they utilized their time by surfing content on online streaming platform. The shift from theatres to OTT is so big that it forced several big stars like Mohanlal, Salman Khan, Fahadh Faasil, Ajay Devgn, etc. to directly release their movies on online platforms. It is also interesting to note that these movies became hit as people watched them twice or thrice during the pandemic.
