After the Centre's go-ahead, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat allow theatres to operate at 100%

Along with capacity expansion, content will be key in reviving the COVID-19 pandemic-hit cinema business.

After the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) allowed theatres to operate at 100 percent capacity from February 1, states like Delhi, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat have also allowed cinema halls to increase occupancy from 50 percent to 100 percent.

In addition, states like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka have also allowed theatres to operate at full capacity.

According to Karan Taurani, Vice-President, Elara Capital, Delhi, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat put together account for 25 percent of box office business for Hindi films.

As for regional cinema from down south, Tamil Nadu accounts for about 70 percent of collections for Tamil and 15-20 percent for Telugu films. For Telugu films, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are the bigger markets as they account for 70 percent of box office collections.

Overall, four states, including West Bengal, so far have allowed theatres to operate at full capacity.

Taurani thinks that if the producers have visibility of 70 percent of the states opening up 100 percent occupancy, they will start announcing release dates in the coming weeks.

Big Bollywood films have been on hold for around a year now. So far, only makers of Salman Khan's Radhe have officially announced the release date of the film this Eid.

It is expected that producers of  Akshay Kumar's Sooryavanshi will release the film in April.

Experts believe that large film releases will only happen towards the end of March as revision of occupancy cap is a state subject. Also, it will take around three weeks for marketing and that's why big films will come to theatres by end of March or in April.

Along with capacity expansion, content will be key in reviving the COVID-19 pandemic-hit cinema business.

This is why the film industry is betting big on Bollywood because Hindi films contribute 43 percent to the overall box office revenues, while the remaining 44 percent business comes form regional films. Hollywood accounts for 13 percent of the total business, according to an EY 2020 report.

In 2019, only 14 percent of overall film releases were Hindi movies, but their contribution was as high as 43 percent. Compare this with regional content which accounted for 80 percent of film releases in 2019, but the contribution was 44 percent.