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With four movies in Hindi and two in English scheduled for release on Friday, August 29, ahead of the sacred period of shradh and Ramazan beginning on September 1, programming heads at multiplexes are struggling to juggle their shows to accommodate as many shows as possible of all the movies. Besides these six movies, there are othermovies in regional languages and movies released in the previous weeks trying to find shows this weekend.
“As for viewers, it is indeed a great weekend as they have a wide variety of choice to choose from. But for producers and distributors, it is tough to get a proper showcase of their movies to take a decent share of the box office collection,” said a trade analyst from Mumbai.
The movies that will hit theatres this weekend are Rock On, CKkompany, Chamku, Mukhbir and Hollywood films — Wanted and Wall-E. Besides these, this weekend will also see shows for movies released inthe previous week like Maan Gaye Mughall-E-Azam, Mumbai Meri Jaan, Phoonk and My Friend Ganesha-2. Singh Is Kinng and Bachna Ae Haseeno will also find a few shows in their third week of release.
“We are trying to find shows for maximum number of movies,” said Utpal Acharya, vice president, programming, Inox. According to Acharya, Inox theatres will give the highest priority to Rock On and Chamku with maximum number of shows. “We had discussions with producers of these two movies and as these are movies for the multiplex audience we see no significant impact on box office collections. We do get a complete weekend before the shradh and Ramzan,” he explained. According to Acharya there is no point in pushing the release to a further date.
When asked whether any special programming strategy is being adopted to accommodate as many movies as possible an Adlabs Cinemas spokesperson said, “We will be showcasing the films according to their individual merit and giving slots keeping in mind genre and target audience of the films." Adlabs will showcase all the six movies this weekend.
“This is not the first time that this has happened. It has happened even in the past. Since people do stay away from movies during this season, there is very little option left for producers and distributors,” said Komal Nahta, editor of trade publications Film
Information and The Film Street Journal. But programming heads at various multiplexes believe the season is not expected to affect attendance in multiplex screens. “Of course the impact will be more visible in theatres that have mass audience in non metros,” said Acharya. According to him Inox will try to accommodate four movies from the previous week in its screens in all metros.
With big banner movies lined up for release in October, distributors of these movies have practically no option but to release this weekend. Kidnap, Drona, Roadside Romeo, Fashion, Karzzzz, and Golmaal
Returns are some of the movies likely to have October release.
It is also believed that a multiplex company is more likely to give
first preference to its home productions or acquisitions. Therefore,
Abhishek Kapoor-directed Rock On, produced by Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar and presented by Reliance ADAG promoted Big Pictures, which also owns the multiplex chain Adlabs Cinemas may find gettingmore shows during this weekend in all their screens. An Adlabs spokesperson did confirm more shows are reserved for movies under Big Films banner.
reijijohn@mydigitalfc.com
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