Ranchi, Sept. 12: Amitabh Bachchan’s first English movie failed to make an impact on the city audience. Reason: Distributors could not purchase the movie, which was costing them a fortune.

Cinema owners claimed that big budget movies like The Last Lear reduce their profit by as much as 60 per cent.

Directed by filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh, even the state’s first multiplex Eylex failed to screen this movie.

The owner of Eylex, Pradeep Modi, said people are looking forward to new movies every week. “But distributors are not ready to buy the movie because of its cost. What should we do?” he said.

Eylex is presently screening old movies like Phoonk, Goal, Bachna Ae Haseeno, Singh Is King and Kismat Konnection. “The total occupancy of Eylex is very less. The multiplex only caters to a particular category of people,” said Modi.

On an average Eylex runs over 10 shows on two screens — gold and platinum. In case a popular movie is not screened, the number of viewers further decrease, Modi pointed out.

The president of the Bihar Jharkhand Motion Picture Association, Sunil Kumar, pointed out that such big budget movies do not run in small towns. “The cost of the movie was almost running to Rs 1 crore, which the distributors failed to shell out,” the president added.

Besides, Sunil said, there are over 50 big budget and multi-starrer movies that have not been screened in both Bihar and Jharkhand.

“There is also a fear that if the movie fails to run, distributors would suffer heavy losses,” the president added.

Similar was the fate of the distributors, who had failed to get the movie Taare Zameen Par, which was released here after a month.

The movie was screened in cinema halls across the country but not in Bihar and Jharkhand, as producer of the film was demanding heavy amounts from distributors, the president rued.

“It is true that popular Bollywood movies are not being screened due to the high price demanded by producers. We have only one or two multiplexes in comparison to other parts of the country. Hence, it becomes quite difficult to fulfil the price demand,” the president rued.