Despite the State government’s nod for reopening the cinema halls, except for a few, most of theatre owners in Tiruchi preferred to wait for a few more days to screen films.
The State government nod had raised eagerness among the movie lovers as they could not go for movies for so long due the spread of COVID-19 virus. Though the pandemic is yet to be brought under control, a section of them were showing eagerness to watch movies, and they widely expected that the theatre would reopen on Tuesday. But, the main stream cinema halls in the city did not open for shows mainly due to the non-release of new films. The cinema halls on Fort Station Road, Mela Chinthamani, Cantonment and Woraiyur continued to remain closed.
Only a few theatres on Madras Trunk Road in Thiruvanaikoil and East Boulevard Road were reopened after a gap of about eight months. Adhering to the conditions imposed by the State government, only 50% of the tickets seats were sold so as to occupy 50% of the seats.
The movie watchers were screened for fever at the entrance. Arrangements were made for using hand sanitizers. They were asked to wear masks and maintain social distancing norms as much as possible.
Since no new films were released, the theatres that reopened on Tuesday chose to screen old popular movies. There were takers for M.G. Ramachandran starred “Ayirathil Oruvan” in Venkateswara theatre in Thiruvanaikoil.
“There are many issues to be solved. The conditions are tough. But, we chose to screen an old film as we do not want to dampen the spirit of the movie lovers, who were lounging for the reopening,” said R. Manoharan, proprietor of the Venkateswara theatre.
There are views among the theatre owners that the condition imposed by the State government to function the theatres with only 50% occupancy is not financially viable for the stakeholders. They also felt that operating the theatres by screening old movies was not financially viable as they would not get more than 10% to 20% of the seats filled up.
“We have made all arrangements to reopen the movie halls. But, the present condition is not condusive to screen movies. We need to take many aspects into considerations before reopening,” says a managing partner of a movie hall in the city.
He said that if new films were released in view of Deepavali, a few more theatres might be reopened on the day of Deepavali.