Leonardo DiCaprio in Blood Diamond: Limited viewing

Amitabh Bachchan in Eklavya: A hit elsewhere

When the multiplexes hit Calcutta three years ago, it meant a lot for movie viewers in the city struggling to visit the decadent standalone theatres. But the way things have been going in the recent weeks, movie-viewing options for city cine buffs are getting lesser by the day.

First, Eklavya’s not coming to the plexes made the fear come true for viewers that it would be the case every time the distributors and exhibitors did not arrive at an agreement. Then Blood Diamond releasing only at New Empire meant a fresh blow to English films in the city.

And now, the latest is that at any given time in the whole of March, two screens of the most popular plex in town will stay shut.

So why is there no Blood Diamond at the INOXes and Fames? Another round of distributor-exhibitor tussle?

This time, the official reason is a tad bland. “There has been no such problem concerning revenue-sharing,” says Saurabh Verma, vice-president programming of INOX.

“The only reason we were unable to release the movie last Friday is due to the presence of other biggies, such as Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd, Babel and Ghost Rider,” he adds.

Nicolas Cage has suddenly become more important than Leonardo DiCaprio and a little-known comic-book movie bigger than an Oscar-nominated film! If a small Bengali film like Padokhhep can run, can’t a multiple-award-winning worldwide blockbuster like Blood Diamond get a show at least?

The real reason, says industry sources, is that the 50 per cent revenue share demanded by the film’s distributor (Warner Brothers) was shot down by the plex folks.

Subhasis Ganguli, regional general manager of INOX, chips in: “The English movie distribution-exhibition circuit here in Calcutta has become a vicious circle and the ones losing out most in all of this are the audiences. English movie watching is definitely going down in the city and good films like Blood Diamond not releasing at plexes is only making matters worse.”

Distributor-exhibitor face-off over revenue sharing was the reason why the Amitabh Bachchan-starrer Eklavya remained the lone guard at single-screen theatres a couple of weeks back.

Only Fame (Hiland Park) played the big-budget multi-starrer, but thanks to its location, not many made it to the far-flung Bypass four-screener. And yes, there has been an impact, with producer-director Vidhu Vinod Chopra feeling the heat with the disappointing Calcutta box-office results.

While Eklavya has done excellent business in other metros, thanks to the 15 to 20 shows of the two-hour movie daily, Calcutta has had to just contend with filled balconies at select standalone cinemas.

And if that was not enough, here comes the clincher. This Thursday onwards, for an entire month, the city’s most popular plex, INOX (Forum) will have to do with half the number of shows because of its “first-ever maintenance” phase.

Says general manager Vikas Syal: “Usually we need to refurbish a plex property every five years but with us having achieved such huge numbers for our Forum property, it was high time we did this. While we do have good content this month, this is also a time when historically the occupancy is less. Come April and May, the holiday season will set in and we can’t afford to lose out on patrons at that time.”

But this is no weak month either, with many a celluloid biggie slated to release in the month of March. So, while Amitabh Bachchan will be seduced by Jiah Khan in Nishabd this Friday, the much-awaited Deepa Mehta’s Water finally releases the Friday next. Just Married and Red have the potential, too, to become sleeper hits, while cricket movies like Hattrick and Meerabai Not Out will definitely find favour during the Cup season.

So, even as the carpets, upholstery and side panels of all the four screens of INOX (Forum) gets revamped, more than 2,000 Calcuttans daily will miss out on the best movies in town.