The Cineworld effect: UK cinema closures deliver body blow to Bollywood
Coverage of Cineworld’s decision to close all of its UK cinemas until April has, understandably, focused on the impact on employees and potential longer-term consequences for the medium.
But the immediate future for Bollywood in the UK now looks particularly bleak, given that Cineworld venues host more than half of all Bollywood screenings in the UK, presenting between 40 and 50 different films a year. The prospect of reduced takings in the UK is being felt in Mumbai, where the industry relies on the territory for a sizeable chunk of its overseas revenue.
“Cineworld has played an important part in bringing Indian films to the UK,” says Vikram Malhotra, CEO of production company Abundantia Entertainment, whose films include Toilet: Ek Prem Katha and Shakuntala Devi. “Most Indian films have released via Cineworld. It’s an unprecedented situation and revenues from overseas markets will surely be impacted as Cineworld goes non-operational.
“With the Indian cinema industry just starting to return to theatrical releases, and considering the importance of the UK market for overseas business, the loss of Cineworld will be felt widely across the industry.”
Twenty years ago, Bollywood distribution in the UK was very much on the fly. If you wanted to catch the latest film, you had to find a grainy copy in one of the video shops tucked between the halal butchers and vegetable markets in the country’s bigger cities. That all changed in the late 90s with the rise of the multiplex, which enabled cinemas to broaden their horizons beyond mainstream Hollywood fare and explore fresh ways of luring in new audiences.
Cineworld was still in its infancy, with only 14 venues, when it was approached by two Bollywood production companies about showing their films. It was very much an experiment for the brand, but with many of its cinemas located in mutlicultural areas, it had a ready-made market on the doorstep. And with up to 20 screens available, a venue could easily afford to spare a screen on a quiet midweek evening.
The move came during a heyday for big-budget Bollywood blockbusters made for the big screen, when stars such as Shah Rukh Khan were in their ascendency and their films created the same buzz among Bollywood fans as a new Marvel adventure.
“Back then, no Bollywood films were being released in the UK, so we took a chance and started playing the films at two locations,” says Stuart Crane, head of film programming at Cineworld. “We put the shows into screens of 150 seats to test the waters, but it soon became clear this was an audience that had been underrepresented for far too long. We would have weekends where our top three films in these cinemas were all Bollywood films, and would be making considerably more than most of the Hollywood product.”
The UK diaspora became an unexpected goldmine for Cineworld and in the early 2000s, Bollywood films accounted for 20% of Cineworld’s screens. Its venues in Feltham and Ilford were the top two cinemas in Europe for Bollywood titles and Cineworld began to hold star-studded premieres.
Soon, Bollywood films were creeping up the box office top 10, snapping on the heels of Hollywood blockbusters. At its peak, In 2010, My Name is Khan played in more than a third of Cineworld’s screens in its opening weekend, taking £2.6m at the UK box office
“It’s the sort of numbers you would expect from a Marvel movie,” says Crane. “Even now, especially during Eid and Diwali, you can have a big Bollywood film go up against almost any Hollywood film and we’d be putting the Bollywood film in the bigger screens.”
With several highly anticipated recent releases bypassing the cinema and going straight to streaming services, including Gulabo Sitabo starring Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan, many in the industry fear that Bollywood will struggle to regain the overseas foothold of its pre-Covid days.
Asim Abbasi’s film Cake looked to the chain for more than half its UK exhibition. “I don’t think other cinemas provide a strong enough alternative so it will definitely be impacting Bollywood films outright and when you factor in the pandemic, it becomes a very difficult proposition to release a film with the fees and marketing costs in the UK.”