While the film trade awaits the government’s permission to reopen cinemas, there’s also a growing concern about when the public will return to cinemas. The fear that people may take very long to frequent cinemas once again due to the safety factor (despite cinemas geared up to follow all hygiene and sanitisation protocols) is coming in the way of the excitement that should have accompanied the news trickling in (from informal sources) that cinemas will be permitted to reopen shortly. There’s also the point of the spending power available in people’s hands post-lockdown, what with loss of millions of jobs and closure of lakhs of businesses. Since entertainment will be one of the last items of spending for people as they struggle to get their lives back on track once the world reopens fully or almost so, there’s the lurking fear that business in cinemas will be far from robust.
Around twenty films have already been committed during the lockdown period, for premieres on streaming platforms. On an average, it can safely be assumed that every film that premieres on an OTT platform translates into a loss of a week’s playing programme for the 10,000-odd multiplexes and single-screen cinemas in the country. Hence 20 films would imply that there will be absence of content for five months for cinemas! That’s an alarming loss. However, that has happened and it cannot be reversed. What is also giving the industry in general and the exhibition sector in particular sleepless nights is the tension about the regulation of content thereafter. Will the situation be any better in the new year?
Mentally, people in the film industry have written off year 2020 as the worst in recent history. Most of them don’t expect much to happen in the remaining five months of this year unless, of course, Sooryavanshi, 83, Coolie No. 1 and Radhe come to the cinemas in the last two months of the year, AND the public gives these big-ticket entertainers a rousing reception. But even if that happens, the fear of the cinemas is: what after that? This fear is born out of the fact that because shootings are still not happening, films will not get made or completed for release in the next year too, at least in the first six months of 2021. It is anybody’s guess that the top stars will not start shooting (unless it is to complete a film which needs a few days’ work only) till they feel very secure. That could happen when either a super-effective medication or a vaccine to fight the coronavirus is available in the market. In the absence of medicine or vaccination, the top twenty stars would not want to venture out of their homes — and they can afford to not shoot for a few months more because it will never be a question of livelihood for them if they choose to stay at home without work.
However, when the stars do return to the studios, they will definitely work overtime and make content at, perhaps, double the speed. We Indians are not just talented but also have grit and determination, besides being extremely hard-working. Even in the past, there have been films which have been made in three or four months alongside those which take 18 to 24 months to complete. Stars are a conscientious lot and if they could rise to the occasion during the pandemic and help the less fortunate ones with financial aid, there’s no reason why they won’t once again pull up their socks and work 16 and 18 hours a day to ready content for cinemas to play in 2021. That’s a given. Nobody will need to prod them on to work at double their usual capacity. With recharged body batteries once they step out of their homes and on to the sets, these stars will play the proverbial heroes for the cinemas as for the other cast and crew members who aren’t financially as well off as them by working overtime. They will not let down the industry which has given them so much name, fame, money and power. Therefore, cinemas can breathe easy, at least as far as content for next year is concerned, even if shootings start as late as in November or December this year.