Karthik Subbaraj-Prabhudheva’s Mercury will be the first film to hit the screens after the strike, without the company of any other big release.
After 47 days, the Tamil Film Producer Council called off its strike and shutdown on Tuesday, allowing for new films to see the daylight from Friday. Karthik Subbaraj-Prabhudheva’s Mercury will be the first film to hit the screens after the strike, without the company of any other big release. “Here we go. Our first Tamil film release after the revamp is gonna be #MercuryMovie on a grand scale.looking fwd to this lovely venture from @karthiksubbaraj.all da best. #Tfpc will assure a huge and grand release wit all support. God bless (sic),” tweeted Vishal. Mercury will have the Telugu biggie Bharat Ane Nenu starring Mahesh Babu for company. Producers can resume work from April 20 after submitting their agreement forms.
Vishal in an earlier press meet had thanked Dhanush, Wunderbar film, Lyca Productions and Karthik Subbaraj for being supportive during the strike. “We at Tamil Film Producer Council are really thankful to Wunderbar Films, Dhanush, Superstar Rajinikanth and Lyca Productions for being so much support over holding the release of Kaala. Especially, it’s the need of hour to thank Karthik Subbaraj and the producers of Mercury. If they had thought of releasing it, they could have easily proceeded for the movie has been released in many other regional places. (sic)”
Future releases would be scheduled by the newly-instituted Release Regularity Committee, that would ensure there are no hassles for smaller films to find screens. “The committee will comprise producers, distributors, FEFSI office bearers, who will be regularizing the release dates. There are around 14 big festive occasions, usually, that will have the big movies releasing. So the producers of these big movies can book the release dates until March 31, 2019, now itself. Based on this, there will be scheduling of low and medium budget movies,” said Vishal.
Apart from the reduction in Virtual Print Fee for E Cinema, the tripartite discussion with the government has decided on complete computerisation of tickets which would enable transparency and authenticity in the box office collection reports. “The collection reports of every film along with the ticket sales along with the ‘head count’ into theatres would be made available as information,” said Vishal at a recent press meet. TFPC would also get into online ticketing, creating a portal that would charge negligible rates of Rs 4-5 per ticket when booked online.