'Kerala has done exceptionally well in first half': PVR INOX CEO

The box office business in the last couple of years has not been predictable While some big scale movies have failed to perform other contentdriven smallbudget films have left all surprised However PVR Inox CEO Kamal Gianchandani says that they are comfortable with the box office performance of films across India in the past two years I would say that a lot of big films or medium films have exceeded expectations Gadar 2 being one of them and Oh My God too Even Animal exceeded expectations by a huge margin We are comfortable with what weve had in the last two years We believe the content cycle has caught up When we talk to our producers almost everyone is busy with multiple films in this state he said talking to middaycom exclusivelySouth audience are loyal movie goers The contribution of South cinema has also been immense in the last few years with several films being loved by even nonnative speakers Malayalam cinema alone has managed to do a business of Rs 1000 crore in the first five months of 2024 which is a massive feat for the smallsized industry Reflecting on the same Kamal says I must say that our audiences based in South of India which is Kerala Andhra Pradesh Telangana Karnataka Tamil Nadu are much more loyal theater goers as compared to the rest of the country With that background Kerala has done exceptionally well in the first half of this year Weve had backtoback hits and weve got a slew of Malayalam films coming in the next five or six monthsWe expect Kantara Chapter 1 to be a big blockbuster So Kannada cinema will also see some robust numbers later this year I think this is mainly because of the loyalty and the audience being a part of the social fabric and social conversation As a result the occupancies in the south of India are much higher than in north west central or east India And as a result the growth in cinema screens is much more in the south of India for most cinema operators Growth is also a function of real estate development but given a choice every cinema operator wants to dig deeper go deeper in the south of India he addedThe NorthSouth content debate on the big screenWhile more and more audience from western and norther part of India is consuming content from South India the vice versa trend is not as much When asked about the consumption pattern of Hindi cinema in the south Gianchandani said Firstly Pan India audiences consuming films coming out of Tamil Telugu or Malayalam or Kannada industry is a trend which is here to stay It is a trend which will only get bigger and bigger as we move forward this year There is Kantara Chapter 1 and then there is Pushpa 2 which could turn out to be the biggest film this yearAll of these films have become panIndia films These are panIndia brands We see the same opportunity for Hindi films striking a chord with film audiences in the Southern part of India Of course that trend is much smaller Its the gap between the two the South Indian films penetrating to the other parts of the country versus Hindi films penetrating the South of India The gap is quite a lot and its in favour of South Indian films penetrating the rest of the country But we believe this gap will come down The South Indian segment will keep getting bigger but Hindi will also catch up he addedOn rereleases The trend of films rereleasing in theatres has been well received by movie lovers Time and again movie fests are announced with old blockbusters being screened in theatres This gives an opportunity to movie lovers to experience their favourite movies on the big screen Weve always done this for the last 20 years Weve regularly repeatedly done this in different chains PVR Inox has been at the forefront of this initiative Its getting noticed this year but weve been doing it for many years and it is profitable Its important to get all segments of audiences back to cinema whether they like brand new films bigger films smaller films medium films old films rereleases he said addingWe want to give them every possible reason to keep coming back to theatres