Actresses Jaya Bachchan, Soha Ali Khan and Roopa Ganguly at the Antarmahal premiere at the Hiland Park multiplex. A Telegraph picture

It was slated to start operations between Durga puja and Diwali. The big-launch premiere, of Rituparno Ghosh?s Antarmahal, did take place on October 28, but it?s taken over a month (34 days to be precise) for Fame (Hiland Park) to open its doors to Calcutta.

Come Friday, and you can finally catch a movie at the multiplex whose chain has set Mumbai rocking from Andheri to Malad to Kandivalli. But why did Calcutta have to wait till December 2 to taste the Fame experience, when the screens in the multiplex off the Bypass were set to come alive on November 4?

?We were not getting the necessary theatre operator licence, which is a must,? Shravan Shroff, managing director of Shringar Cinemas, tells Metro from Hong Kong. ?But now, we have finally got all the required papers and we will start full operations from Friday.?

But how could Fame (Hiland Park) screen the four shows of Antarmahal without the ?necessary? licences? ?Since they were not ticketed shows, we could go ahead with the premiere,? explains Sonali Shroff, head of corporate communications, Shringar Cinemas. ?Since we had the Rituparno Ghosh film, we didn?t want to lose the opportunity of screening the movie first. We also hoped that we would be able to start operations soon after that.?

But the district administration, apparently, had other ideas. The final sanction only came through on Wednesday.

Throughout November, there has been a big buzz around the Hiland Park area, with residents keen to go the multiplex way. The Fame billboards all along the EM Bypass haven?t helped matters. The ticket counter called Box Office, which has sent back many a disheartened cine-buff, will finally open from Thursday morning.

Even the distributors haven?t been spared. Every Monday, Fame would ask for film prints, only to cancel the order on Wednesday or Thursday, just hours before the movie release. Says Naresh Jain, director of Nikita Arts Movies Pvt Ltd: ?We have had to divert all the film prints that Fame had asked for but then cancelled.?

Throughout, it was always the mystery of the pending licence. Adds Sonali Shroff from Mumbai: ?All that while, we were expecting the final licence to come and would even prepare programming every week, but couldn?t go ahead without the regulatory nod.?

Now that the papers are in place, Fame (Hiland Park) has kept its promise of pricing morning show tickets at Rs 30. The four-screen plex will start with as many as eight films and a total of 20 shows for Week One. It will also be the only multiplex in town to screen the new six-in-one Tollywood tale Ek Mutho Chhobi, along with the usual biggies like Home Delivery, Mr Ya Miss and Apaharan.