NEED TO THINK OUT OF THE BOX OFFICE

Reverse Swing

- MADHAVAN NARAYANAN

I had a strange experience earlier this month when I went to watch A Complete Unknown, the Oscar-nominated biopic on Nobel-winning bard Bob Dylan. We were barely a dozen in the large hall on a weekday afternoon. I paid ₹240 for a ticket and realised that most of the food items the multiplex offered cost more than the ticket. It might have been cheaper to step out of the movie area, get something in the mall's food court, and then buy a new ticket to get back in.

Movie outings are simply not what they used to be, and a few recent experiences have made me look back at the old days with 3D-viewer glasses. Digital technologies have led to paradoxical divergences. Shooting and editing of movies are a lot cheaper; but the same technologies have given us broadband internet at home and all-you-can-watch content for a fixed subscription on OTT apps.

I grew up in a time when watching the "first day first show" of a Friday release at a single-screen hall was a status symbol. It regularly featured characters like Dev Anand's in Kala Bazaar (1960), who made a living by selling movie tickets in the black market.

Both the good and the bad of that era are gone. Today, we can binge-watch on a small screen at home or book a multiplex ticket on an app—no need to face the hassle of the black-market hustle.

Just when those in the movie screening business were figuring ways to face the changing market—somewhat like a latter-day version of Guru Dutt as the fallen filmmaker in