Cuttack, June 16: Film buffs have reason to cheer as the city's much-awaited multiplex will open by October.
The new Inox, with four screens, will be first in Odisha as the state's sole multiplex in Bhubaneswar has three screens. The multiplex is being built on a 60,000-sqft area in the same place where Durga-Devi, two theatres, used to stand earlier near the Town Hall.
The work for the upgrade of Durga-Devi theatres into Cuttack's first multiplex began in 2011.
"We have teamed up with Inox and it will be a one-stop entertainment centre in Cuttack. The multiplex will provide rich cinema-viewing to residents of the city," said Shankar Gupta, a proprietor of the multiplex.
He said the multiplex would have 934 seats and have modern equipment including 4k projectors that would provide superior 3-D and 4-D viewing.
Look forward to a shopping mall, gaming zone and food court with adequate parking provision. The cost of the mall-cum-multiplex has been pegged at Rs 25 crore.
Apart from this multiplex, the single-screen Grand theatre will also be inaugurated by June end. Official sources said Grand theatre's new avatar would come with a single screen equipped with a state-of-the-art surround system and seating capacity for 400 people.
"This is a revival period for theatres. Earlier, only five of the 11 theatres were functional in the city. These were Brudababan, Jayshree, Nishamani, Samrat and Sangam theatres. The number of theatres will now go up to 10 in Cuttack after the inauguration of the multiplex and renovated Grand theatre by the end of this year," said Kartik Swain, a resident of Badambadi.
Film buffs in Cuttack used to travel to Bhubaneswar to watch films starring their favourite actors and actresses as theatres in the city lacked modern equipment, attractive ambience, facilities and proper seating arrangements.
The kind of infrastructure that new multiplexes and theatres offer is important to today's viewer, especially to those from the younger generation. The film buff's movie viewing experience improved with the inauguration of Cuttack's first Cineplex at Sangam theatre in October 2014, Swain added.
The 660-seat Cineplex, named Sangam Screen-2, had come up at an estimated cost of Rs 1 crore and is equipped with a 7.1 Dolby digital sound system along with two-way screening projectors.
"It used to be rather difficult to get tickets earlier, especially during festive seasons such as Raja and Dusshera, as there were only a limited number of theatres. Now there will be adequate choice for movie goers as they can watch other films without moving from one theatre to the other," said Swetapragyan Das, a film buff.
