Hyderabad: The long wait ended for cinema buffs on Friday, after as many as 250 theatres in Telangana have reopened screening Satyadev starrer ‘Thimmarusu’ and Teja Sajja starrer ‘Ishq’.
“The first day’s business was good, however, the business would pick up as days progress. We’re expecting the footfall may increase during the weekend,” said exhibitor Vijayender Reddy.
With the release of movies ‘Thimmarusu’ and ‘Ishq’, collection at the box-office was decent during the morning show. According to the figures through online booking collections, Devi theatre at RTC X Roads collected a maximum of Rs 33,117 for Satyadev starrer. Sudarshan 35mm collected Rs 12,827 for Teja Sajja starrer ‘Ishq’. The movie ‘Narsimhapuram’ collected Rs 21,000 and other low-budget flick ‘Parigetti Parigettu’ raked in a decent amount of Rs 5,259 for the morning show.
Exhibitor Vijayender Reddy says that window collections would sum up an additional amount of Rs 10,000 apart from the online bookings. “The scenario in district headquarters, which are referred to as C centres, is quite different as people prefer to buy tickets at the window booking. We can’t depend on the online bookings figures entirely. And the Telangana government’s GO of allowing theatre owners to collect parking fees has come as a succour,” says Vijayender Reddy.
Meanwhile, in Andhra Pradesh, about 400 theatres have reopened to screen the new films from Friday with 50 percent seat occupancy. The theatre owners are worried about the ticket fares fixed by the Andhra Pradesh government. Theatre exhibitors are hoping that the AP government would take a decision on revision of ticket fares.
“Because theatre owners are stuck in deep losses already. With ticket fares as low as Rs 15 and Rs 50 would only make them shut the business permanently. The returns on such ticket prices will not even be sufficient to pay the power bills that theatres incur on a daily basis. And there’s no point running the show incurring losses each day,” he added.
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