'Bade Miyan Chote Miyan', 'Maidaan' BO debacle impacts exhibition sector

The box office failure of Bade Miyan Chhote Miyan and Maidaan two highprofile festival releases from Bollywood has had a cascading effect on the exhibition sector say theatre owners impacted by the poor showing of the moviesBade Miyan and Maidaan starring big stars like Akshay Kumar and Tiger Shroff and Ajay Devgn respectively released during the festival of Eid a traditionally good period for theatrical releases but failed to live up to expectationsBiharbased exhibitor Vishek Chauhan said the situation is alarming in the first and second quarter of the financial yearAn exhibitor earns money when a film runs houseful Almost 90 per cent of the business is down This year has been a complete washout Exhibitors are in red The cost of running a cinema hall daily comes to around Rs 30000 To just break even we need sales of Rs 1 lakh but currently the sales are ranging from Rs 5000 to Rs 15000 So you can imagine what the situation is like Chauhan told PTINot just these two releases the first quarter of the year saw bigbudget movies such as Fighter and Yodha also perform poorly According to Chauhan Fighter at least had a good opening in the range of Rs 25 to Rs 27 croreHe said Eid typically seen as a profitable period in the industry has turned out to be disastrous due to the failure of iquestBade Miyan Chote Miyaniquest and iquestMaidaaniquest The festive period is generally associated with a Salman Khan release but the superstar didnt have anything lined up this yearEid was a disaster compared to last year Weve never had such a bad response during Eid except in 2022 when we had Tiger Shroff Heropanti 2 and Ajay Devgns films Runway 34 release he addedAccording to box office tracking website Sacnilk Bade Miyan reportedly made on a budget of over Rs 300 crore has earned Rs 72 crore gross in India Similarly Maidaan made at a reported budget of over Rs 200 crore earned Rs 51 crore gross in IndiaAkshay Rathi who owns theatres in central India says bigticket movies unlike last year which saw hits such as Pathaan Jawan Gadar 2 and Animal have not fared well at the box officeBusiness has been drastically down It is tough to measure in numbers Compared to last year it has been a ruthlessly bad scenario Content in general has not been compelling enough for the audience to watch Any film that has good content be it Shaitaan or Laapataa Ladies audience has come for them We need to get creative in the way we put out content Rathi told PTIChauhan fears the situation will continue to be grim in the second quarter despite summer vacationThis is a lucrative period to release films and its being said that films are not releasing because of elections I believe Bollywood producers are afraid of the box office The situation is grim because of the poor performance of films this year including the two disastrous Eid releases It shows despite having stars budgets festive dates movies have tanked In such a scenario cinemas are suffering he addedLeading exhibitor and distributor Sunny Chandiramani who runs 20 screens across Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh said the situation is so bad that he is thinking of shutting down some of the screensEveryone is facing losses across the nation maybe a little less in the South as regional films are doing well We often say content is king but my observation is that the content is not good in Bollywood Star power is also not working Chandiramani told PTIWe are awaiting the release of the Marathi film Nach Ga Ghuma which is on May 1 If that film performs well we will continue our operations If not we will shut down 10 cinemas out of the 20 from May 7 This week we are shutting down one screen out of the two in our multiplex he addedManoj Desai the executive director of Mumbais iconic Gaiety Galaxy also lamented the lacklustre run of movies at the box office compared to last year 2023 was a great year for Bollywood and exhibitors but 2024 has been dull We never thought Bade Miyan Chote Miyan and Maidaan would not do well Ajay Devgn is an action hero people like watching him in the Singham franchise and Drishyam movies People didnt like both the films Desai saidSmaller films like Shaitaan Laapataa Ladies Madgaon Express and Crew did well he addedFighter was a beautiful film but not many people came to watch it I believe that it has been an overdose of war moviesIt is a waitandwatch scenario for Chauhan who hopes to increase the footfall in cinemas by reducing ticket pricesWe barely have 20 or 25 people in a show Weve reduced the ticket prices from Rs 150 to Rs 100 so that people come to theatres Ill not shut down the cinema halls Well manage somehow to run content from other languages or Hollywood like The Fall Guy May 3 Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes May 10 or a small film like Srikanth May 10 We will take our chances with those films he addedThe exhibitors have now pinned their hope on movies such as the Prabhas Deepika Padukone and Amitabh Bachchanstarrer Kalki 2898 AD Kabir Khans Chandu Champion with Kartik Aaryan Devara starring Jr NTRs Pushpa 2 fronted by Allu Arjun the Ram Charanled Game Changer and Kamal Haasans Indian 2Small films this year have done the numbers but theyve done well in a maximum of 20 cities A big movie tends to do well beyond the metro cities We need bigticket movies to do well for the exhibition sector We have Chandu Champion Indian 2 Kalki Hope things will change Rathi addedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever