Source : Enkayaar, Bollywood Trade News Network
Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (NR)
Mangalore Dec 8: Who would have thought when Ajay Bijli went into renovation of the Priya Cinema Hall in Vasant Vihar in New Delhi, that it would emerge as a brand name of such powerful recall that it would become a producer of a film, aka TAARE ZAMIN PAR. But that is what has precisely happened. It is the case of Adlabs started by Manmohan Shetty but whose majority stake Anil Ambani group holds that it would venture into film production. Adlabs has also done it, and KHOYA KHOYA CHAND, which released on Friday December 7, is the first production from the house of Adlabs.
Even the stocks of Mukta Arts promoted by Subhash Ghai, which were lying in doldrums, are witnessing interesting rallies, so is the rally to be seen in the all the other major entertainment companies, be it Pyramid Saimira, or Cineplex. A new history is indeed being written in the history of Indian cinema. The cinema owners emerging as the stakeholders to have a better control on the product that is to be marketed aka the film characterize this new trend. When the hall owners themselves become the distributors they go out of the way to position the product in such a manner that it ensures maximum receptivity.
The trend has also to be seen from the perspective that there would not be any acrimony about sharing of the revenue in the first week when the film is released. This trend is already there in Hollywood and it has slowly started gaining momentum in India. It is a healthy trend, as it would bring in further transparency into the business of filmmaking. The participation on the part of the cinema owners has increased as the investors into the shares of these companies have provided the capital for the same.
The advent of these new cinema owners has also spawned a revolution in the way the movies are being viewed now these days. Watching AAJA NACH LE on the day it was released in the last show in Adlabs theatre at Mangalore it was a pleasant surprise to see teenage girls sitting in the front rows and wolf-whistling to the moves of Madhuri Dixit. This seen while it has now become a norm in the major cities, to find it being replicated in the city like Mangalore is a clear pointer about the fact that the new breed of cinema hall owners have been able to generate such a strong feeling of confidence in movie viewing that the reciprocation for the same finds outbursts in the form of wolf-whistles.
The cinema viewing while it has undergone metamorphosis, it is not that the feeling of nostalgia associated with the cinema is not there in the form of vendors selling eatables through a shoulder-hanging contraption. This is a distinct reminder to memory from the past where the vendors used to wait anxiously for the screen to sell their wares. In trying to relive those times, a transformation that has undergone is in the dress of the sellers as also there ambience. Movie viewing is indeed becoming an experience worth being savored and remembered.