Hyderabad: The wait is over. Cinema is back in Hyderabad from Friday. And marking the grand return of movies to the city’s silver screens, which have been blank since the Covid-19 lockdown, will be Christopher Nolan’s much awaited Sci-Fi action thriller ‘Tenet’.
The movie will be released in both multiplexes and single screen theatres across Hyderabad, according to theatre owners. The movie theatre sector, which was in dire straits with the lockdown robbing several thousands of their livelihood, received the much awaited approval to open from Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao last month, with film shootings also resuming.
The State government had given the nod to reopen movie halls with a set of precautionary measures to keep the coronavirus at bay, after which theatre owners have been busy making necessary arrangements to reopen cinema halls.
Multiplex chains including PVR Cinemas, Inox, Cinepolis and Mahesh Babu’s AMB cinemas will be screening movies from Friday. Though Telangana Exhibitors planned to initially screen movies which were released in OTT platforms such as Amazon Prime Video and Hotstar, permission was not given from these platforms.
Vijender Reddy, secretary of Telangana Exhibitors Association, said 80 per cent of multiplexes and many single screen theatres were geared up to resume operations. “Sai Dharam Tej’s ‘Solo Brathuke So Better’ scheduled to release for Christmas will bring audiences to theatres and revive the business,” he said.
The Centre had issued guidelines regarding the operation of cinema halls and multiplexes from October 15. The movie theatres which have remained closed for more than eight months will resume operations with 50 per cent of their seating capacity in view of the pandemic.
Speaking to Telangana Today, Balgovind Raj, joint secretary of Telangana Film Chamber, said the seating capacity would be increased depending on the Covid-19 situation. “We will take up necessary measures in theatres to instil confidence among audience,” said Balgovind Raj, who is also the owner of Sudarshan 35 MM and Devi 70 MM at RTC Crossroads.
There are 175 movie screens including over 70 multiplex screens in Greater Hyderabad region and the figure goes up to 600 across the State while the seating capacity in theatres varies from 400 to 1,300.
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