Sunday, January 31, 2021

Exhibitors announce Thalapathy Master ticket for Rs 50

 

Master ends run in theaters. Theater owners insult Thalapathy by selling tickets for Rs 50-Producers swing to OTT.  Thala fans  against Thalapathy on Twitter. Exhibitors and distributors decide to hereafter screen films only after the Producer gives in writing that the OTT screening will happen only 30 days after theater release. The most awaited film that trade looked forward after Master to keep cash registers ringing was Dhanush Jagame Thanthiram(JT) scheduled to come on February mid-week. After the Exhibitor- Distributor- Master Producer fracas over sharing of collections, Producer S. Sashikanth, and Chakravarthy Ramachandra decided to accept the offer from Netflix to screen the film straight on OTT.

Master Producer decided not to  return 10% share of two week collection to theaters and distributors and instead told them to take entire 3rd week collections. Producer renewed the KDM ( digital key given by Qube to screen films in movie halls) for three days and Amazon began streaming from Jan 29th. Theaters grouse is that they had paid for 30 days run but Producer took extra cash from Amazon for an early streaming within 16 days. They wanted to be compensated but it did not happen.

Single screen  theaters mostly in towns and tier 2- 3 tier cities say that from Monday onwards, there will be no patrons. They put up posters announcing that tickets were available for Rs 50 till Monday, last day of show. Many theaters have already announced that they are taking bookings till Monday. Multiplexes have taken the stance that if the service provider  inform that they received no VPF fee, there will be no shows.

JT Producer Sashikant , hero Dhanush with director Karthik Subburaj were happy that it will release in theaters. But seeing the reaction of exhibitors who unconditionally screened Master, now turning volte face and demanding extra money has got a second thinking on theater release. Distributors say that as 100% occupancy will be allowed from Feb 1, there would be no uncertainty over collection share. They point  out that the 50% occupancy limit had led to theaters making money and they left in the lurch. It has to be seen whether the JT team would relent.

A scene in Master has infuriated Thala Ajith fans. A poster of a magazine which  mentions about Ajith’s accident on the set figures in a fight scene that Vijay takes part. The tea vending cart has two posters and one of them is the one Thala fans say was deliberately kept to malign their idol. In fact the poster can be seen only if one uses the remote to zoom on it. Sulthan starring Karthi teaser is out and an announcement is due on Monday. Will it be release date for theater or OTT ?

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