The iconic Regal cinema at Colaba in Bombay is reportedly on the verge of closure due to mounting losses. Talks are in progress to convert it into a multiplex but no concrete decision has been taken as yet. It was built in 1933 and the first film it screened was a Laurel-Hardy film, The Devil’s Brother, on 4th October, 1933. The cinema used to screen mainly English films for years together before it started to screen Hindi films.
Regal holds the distinction of being the first air-conditioned cinema of India. It had screened films which had long runs at the cinema. Some of the long-running films screened at Regal were The Sound Of Music (38 weeks), Enter The Dragon (31 weeks), The Ten Commandments (31 weeks), Titanic (30 weeks), and Gandhi (26 weeks). Films in the James Bond franchise invariably ran for at least 20 weeks each at Regal.