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Every time, the colonel bought tickets from Mrinalini Cinema Hall on Jessore Road in Dum Dum, West Bengal, he paid an additional amount of Rs 25 to the officials at the ticket counter with one request – to reserve the G5 and G6 seats for him and his wife. This was especially so when there was a Shah Rukh Khan film. The manager of the hall smiled as he narrated this story and said, “When I asked him the reason, the colonel told me that in his youth when he he had bunked his class and came to see a movie, he sat on that particular seat and his wife was seated next to him. This is how they met and their love story began.”

Established in 1958, the Mrinalini Cinema Hall had to close down sometime in 2008. Abhik Pal on behalf of the management of Mrinalini Cinema Hall told BE, “Over the years, the number of audience decreased substantially. People nowadays want everything under one roof, so they prefer multiplexes.” Over 250 single screen halls have closed down in West Bengal in the past few years.

Pal added, “There used to be 1000-1200 seats in a single screen theatre. However, in the multiplexes, in each hall there are 250-300 seats. So, there is much more utilisation of space in the multiplexes.”

The fate of single screen theatres is the same all over India. According to a 2017 KPMG report, on an average, 3-4% of single screen theatres have been closing downevery year. However, the single screens in northern and eastern India have been more impacted than theatres in the south. In Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala, the number of single screens are much higher in comparison to West Bengal.

Filmmaker Kamaleswar Mukherjee told BE, “I feel that in Bengal, people are not loyal to their language. Also, people here can comprehend a Hindi or even an English movie and they are far more spectacular. As a result, people often opt for these movies, unlike in southern India.” Mukherjee also pointed out that earlier in Bengal, the films were made keeping the masses in mind but now, the majority of the content generated caters to the tastes of the middle and the upper middle classes.

He added, “The ticket prices in the single screens cannot be increased while the prices are higher in multiplexes. As a result, the distributors and producers are also more inclined towards the multiplexes as they ensure higher profits.”

According to sources, from the angle of distribution, there is less business for small movies and the digital mediais pushing the sector towards a dark future. A sourcestated that ideally single screens should be meant forlow-budget movies while multiplexes should be meant for high-budget movies.

Film producer Amarendra Singh told BE, “This has created a lot of problems for the small producers. Earlier, the producers used to earn some profits through satellite rights. However, now due to digital media, such profits have also been curtailed.”  

Krishna Daga, Ex-President, Eastern India Motion Pictures Association (EIMPA) told BE, “There are many single screen halls in the cities as well as in the suburbs which are running well. They have constructed a food court and made the theatres more comfortable. So it has to be multi-purpose and single screen halls need an upgradation in order to survive.”

Pal is of the opinion that government aid is essential for this upgradation. He lamented, “Once we generated huge amounts of revenues but the government has not provided any incentives for the hall owners. We have to pay a huge amount of municipal taxes. There is no subsidy on electricity which is prevalent in other states. We don’t enjoy any discount on the amusement tax as well.”

The announcement of Jio-fibre’s ‘first-day-first-show’ scheme may threaten the businesses of cinema chains like PVR Cinemas and INOX as it promises same day-and-date movie releases for premium broadband customers starting from the middle of 2020.  

This poses an important question – will the digital medium make the big screen less viable?  Mukherjee is of the opinion, “Witnessing a movie in big screen is not only about seeing a film but also having a superior audio-visual experience. So, I think for the films with audio-visual grandeur, big screens will survive but in the case of content or performance-driven films, digital platforms will have the upper hand.”