New Delhi: Film business in India is all set to miss out on the ₹1,000 crore that the box office had the potential to make in January alone with the loss of the Republic Day holiday adding to its woes this week.
Some of the January releases that got pushed include Akshay Kumar’s period drama Prithviraj that was to hit theatres on 21 January, John Abraham’s Attack and political thriller The Kashmir Files. These were expected to drive sales for cinemas for the Republic Day national holiday. The cancellation of the theatrical release of Allu Arjun’s Ala Vaikunthapurumuloo in Hindi last week, also comes as a blow, since the actor has just developed a fan base in north India thanks to Pushpa: The Rise- Part One.
In the past few years, Republic Day has seen Bollywood throw up a bunch of hits including some nationalist narratives such as Kangana Ranaut’s Manikarnika- The Queen of Jhansi that made over Rs. 90 crore in 2019 and Akshay Kumar’s Airlift that earned ₹123 crore in 2016.
“Due to the recent rise in covid-19 cases, the release calendar for January 2022 has taken a setback where the month typically has always been a scoring one for the entire movie industry pre-covid," Ashish Saksena, chief operating officer, cinemas, at ticketing site BookMyShow said.
As per the original release calendar for January this year, movies from the south were set to dominate with mass-market releases like SS Rajamouli’s RRR starring Ram Charan, Jr NTR and Alia Bhatt besides Prabhas-helmed Radhe Shyam, Ajith Kumar’s Valimai (Tamil) and Dulquer Salmaan-starrer Salute (Malayalam), Saksena said. Apart from restrictions like night curfews, 50% seating caps, and states like Delhi having shut cinemas completely, the consumer sentiment has been low through the past few weeks as the third wave continues to peak, he added.
Rajendar Singh Jyala, chief programming officer at INOX Leisure Ltd agreed this is a big weekend lost especially for Hindi cinema. “For the southern industries, the Pongal weekend is usually really critical so those releases carry forward for the next two weeks and there isn’t much of a gap," Jyala added.
Incidentally, southern film industries have continued to roll out new releases despite latest restrictions—Malayalam romantic drama Hridayam released in cinemas last Friday while Telugu film Bangrarraju has spilled over from its Pongal release in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Hollywood horror thriller Scream will also hit theatres on Wednesday. However, Tamil Nadu and Kerala continue to be hit by weekend curfews, when film business is at its peak. Tamil film Veerame Vaagai Soodum that was scheduled for Republic Day, has also been pushed indefinitely.
Vishal Sawhney, chief executive officer, Carnival Cinemas said while only the regional films trickling in have kept content flowing over the past few weeks, there is hope that restrictions will be eased by the end of January. “Republic Day has been a fantastic weekend for us in the past and we obviously don’t expect to see those numbers this year. But as cases decline and SOPs come in, we hope a bigger line-up will resume in theatres by February," Sawhney said.
