Few days back, we saw a Facebook post by someone and it said that the real thing that kills Malayalam cinema is not Piracy but in fact it is the attitude of our theater owners and that post was specially aimed at Liberty Basheer who is the head of Exhibitors Federation in Kerala.
They are again started strike from today by closing down all screens under their federation and now the Christmas releases of this year had landed in trouble. The main films which are all set to come as Christmas releases this year are, Dulquar Salman starrer Charlie, Dileep starrer Two Countries, Manju Warrier starrer Jo and the Boy, Dhyan Sreenivasan starrer Adi Kapyare Koottamani and Unni Mukundan starrer Style etc. Now the release of them will be in jeopardy due to this theater strike that had started from today.
Already there was 3 or 4 strikes had happened in this year as the theater owners went for strike demanding action against wide release of Malayalam films. Even before Onam release as well they had declared a strike. But now the reason for strike is not wide release problem really. The latest issue is about the government decision to not to seal the ticket if the theaters were not ready to pay the money to the welfare fund in advance. The amount is calculated as 3 rupees for each ticket in a theater. The theater owners says that the advance payment is not possible at all as the case related to this welfare fund issue is still in court and it’s not right to take money from them before there is a verdict by court in this issue.
They had 330 theaters under them in 75 centers. So it is a clear cut pressure tactic using by the Exhibitors Federation just before the Christmas release. Because it will be great loss to the films if they had only multiplex screens to release and single screens under the federation still remains a great source of revenue for each and every film here.
