COMING SOON TO A THEATRE NEAR YOU

With cinemas operating at full capacity again, producers and studios are announcing release dates for the blockbusters they have been sitting on for the past year

- SUHANI SINGH

SHIBASISH SARKAR, GROUP CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF RELIANCE ENTERTAINMENT, was one of the many Bollywood studio executives to keenly follow the daily box office collections of the Tamil film Master. Starring the industry’s two popular actors—Thalapathy Vijay and Vijay Sethupati—the drama since its release on January 13 has collected over Rs 150 crore domestically, with an additional Rs 100 crore worldwide. The figures were impressive given that until February 1, cinemas in India were operating at 50 per cent occupancy. “It has given oxygen to the Indian film industry,” says Sarkar. “Its success proves that audiences are hungry for outdoor entertainment experience.” Ever since the Centre permitted cinemas to operate at full occupancy, the focus is on Sarkar who has held on to two of Reliance’s prized assets—the Rohit Shetty-directed Sooryavanshi with Akshay Kumar and Kabir Khan’s ’83 which restages India’s maiden World Cup title.

For exhibitors, the two Hindi films are instrumental to revive the badly hit theatrical industry, one of the last businesses to reopen fully. Sarkar is hopeful that they will be able to release one of the two films during the Holi-Good Friday period in the last week of March or early April with the second scheduled for June. But the official release date will come only after he has reached an understanding with distributors for his biggies made on an estimated budget of Rs 200 crore each. “We have been sitting with the films for the past year and the cost and commercials have gone for a toss,” says Sarkar. “We have lost so much that we are no longer in a place to take advantage of the situation.”