Cinemas are shutting down after running in heavy losses since a month following their reopening post-lockdown. It’s the same story in every circuit. Whether in Bihar or C.I. or C.P. Berar or even in big circuits like Bombay and Delhi-U.P., the sentiments are the same. Faced with lack of playing programmes on the one hand and low footfalls on the other, cinemas which had reopened on 15th October after remaining shut for seven lockdown months, are downing shutters once again. The shutdown is not restricted to just single-screen cinemas. Even multiplexes are operating lesser screens now than a few weeks back. For instance, a multiplex which had six screens but had reopened four in October, has closed one or two of those screens for an indefinite period.
Know-alls say that while the cinemas were facing losses in terms of fixed costs during the lockdown, they are now incurring greater losses because they are now spending on variable costs too. This means that audience attendance in cinemas is so poor that the revenues in the last four weeks have not been able to cover the variable costs, what to talk of fixed costs.
Elphinstone cinema of Patna is just one of the many cinemas which have announced that they are closing down temporarily because there’s no new film to screen and also because the audiences are not coming to the cinemas in full force. A lot of people in the trade believe that inducing the public to return to the cinemas will require new film releases every week. “Just one new release in four weeks will not work. People have to get used to visiting cinemas, and that can happen only when new films are released every Friday,” said an exhibitor who himself is contemplating closing his single-screen cinema temporarily after running it in losses for a month.
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Your editor had on 19th September predicted that cinemas in India might have to close down some time next year due to shortage of playing programmes. In a video (uploaded above) titled ‘Kyun agle saal phir cinema bandh hone ka darr hai?’, uploaded on 19th September on his YouTube channel, Komal Nahta Official, he had warned that an acute shortage of films might be experienced because a number of films had been committed for premiere on streaming platforms. His prediction is coming true much in advance. Just a month after the reopening, and even before the new year, many cinemas are either shutting down or planning to shut down because there are no films to screen. Perhaps, it’s the same pattern which cinemas in the USA and Europe followed post-lockdown — reopen, then shut down!