CINEMA BUSINESS EXPECTS REVIVAL WITH BIG FLICKS NEXT YEAR

NEW DELHI: The film exhibition business is expected to make a full recovery only in 2022, when a series of big-budget movies are lined up for release. That’s despite a healthy pipeline of Bollywood movies set to hit the theatres later this year.

The first quarter of 2021 has not done enough business but audiences are expected to trickle in gradually after April. The situation will be better but slow this year despite a good line up of movies, trade website Box Office India said in a blog post.

However, 2022 will see big star vehicles, including Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Pathan, Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt’s long delayed Brahmastra, and Fighter starring Hrithik Roshan and Deepika Padukone.

With budgets of over ₹100 crore to ₹200 crore, trade experts said the films will play an important role in prodding audiences to see the value of big-screen experience and producers will have enough time to get over the few bumps expected in 2021.

Besides, Ranbir Kapoor’s Animal with Kabir Singh director Sandeep Reddy and the third instalment of Salman Khan’s Tiger franchise, Baahubali star Prabhas has two big offerings—Adipurush co-starring Saif Ali Khan, and an untitled film with Padukone and Amitabh Bachchan.

That apart, Tiger Shroff’s Ganpat and Heropanti 2 will hit the theatres, besides Akshay Kumar’s Ram Setu and Bachchan Pandey. Mayday, starring Amitabh Bachchan and Ajay Devgn, will also vie for eyeballs in 2022.

“Bollywood is definitely upping its game and getting the production churn started, some of it in time for 2022 and is ready to bounce back now,” film trade and exhibition expert Girish Johar said, adding that the pause in production in 2020 was possibly used by film-makers, actors and studios to finalise scripts that will see the light of the day, albeit a little later than planned.

But 2020 should be huge thanks to the backlog of cinemas, many of which were only firming plans in the second and third quarter of 2020 with all on-ground production halted. “This will bear fruit in 2022 as the line-up will be the biggest ever in recent history and it will be a surprise if it doesn’t (pull off some kind of) records,” Box Office India said.