The rumours of an impending theatre shutdown before Pawan Kalyan Starrer Hari Hara Veera Mallu release have been doing the rounds for some time now and now the leading Tollywood producer and exhibitor Dil Raju has completely denied the rumours.
“These rumors are baseless and are the figment of an idle mind with vested interests,” Dil Raju told reporters at a press conference in Hyderabad on Monday.
“There is no one who dares not to allow Pawan Kalyan’s film to be released,” he announced. “There are absolutely no plans to close theaters and there is no need to talk about it,” he said.
The Root of the Controversy
The issue started on April 19, with a bunch of exhibitors and distributors from East Godavari warning of keeping theatres shut if their demands were not met. But follow-up meetings with stakeholders have gone a long way to ease the tension.
Dil Raju clarified that though a few Telangana and Andhra Pradesh-based exhibitors did express their apprehension (regarding the percentage of sharing their revenues) at the time — particularly over the high revenue share ratio — at no stage was a shutdown of cinemas officially suggested.
"They have never even discussed theatre closures in any official meeting. It was just a matter of ironing out some exhibitor benefits,” he explained.
Disinformation and Government Response
However, by May 24th, things changed and baseless rumours started making rounds that the shutdown of the theatres was specifically targeted at Hari Hara Veera Mallu.
"These false reports led to unnecessary panic and had even reached the Andhra Pradesh government. I’ve been in the business 30 years, and I’ve never seen so much confusion created by speculation alone,” he said.
It's a season of bad summer and June, and July see a very strong revival at the box office if one of those films clicks," Dil Raju added. He also said that the Telugu industry has so far had a very bad summer with no major hits in the past three months and the Indian Premier League adding to the issue.
“We have biggies like Bhairavam, Thug Life, Kubera and Hari Hara Veera Mallu for release. It would be irrational and counterproductive to close theatres at this time,” he said.
Better Coordination Needed
It will be back to the editors again if not," says the former president of the Telugu Film Chamber of Commerce, adding that this is a perennial problem in the industry: the last-minute running to the government.
“We tend to approach the Chief Ministers for price revisions for the tickets just three days before a release. I think we need to be present with state governments rather than last-minute requests,” he said.
Also read: Exclusive: Prabhas starrer The Raja Saab to release in December, says source
Final Word
Dil Raju finally thanked the Andhra Pradesh government for its consideration and stressed that the film industry will take all efforts to keep the relationships well with both the Telugu-speaking states. “We are all working together toward the same goal — to keep the magic of the movies alive and healthy,” he signed off.
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