Bollywood waking up to disasters caused by high ticket prices
- IndiaGlitz, [Thursday,May 05 2022]
There is a debate in the Telugu film industry. It pertains to the high ticket prices for medium-range movies. Already, a few movies have been badly battered. In fact, a big-ticket movie starring two heroes, too, has been stamped out because of the prevalent high ticket prices in the Telugu States.
The situation is no different in Bollywood. Slowly, distributors, producers and exhibitors are waking up to the pitfalls of inflated ticket prices in the post-lockdown (2020-21) era. Hindi-language films like 'Bachchhan Panday', 'Attack', 'Runway 34' and 'Heropanti 2' in recent times are believed to have suffered from high ticket prices.
An opinion piece has analyzed the sorry trend, saying that the Hindi audiences want to watch big-scale movies like 'RRR' 'KGF 2' and not midsized movies for the same reason. The audience has also seen ticket rates rise around 30-40% on average compared to the price they were watching at before the pandemic, says Box Office India in an opinion piece. Note that there are exceptions like 'The Kashmir Files'.
The audience are now prepared to wait for small movies to arrive on OTT. OTT offers entertainment and a wide variety of choices for a fraction of what theatres do (including snacks and commutation expenses).
One has to see how cash-rich movies like Tollywood and Bollywood are going to be affected by OTT and high ticket pricing in the long run. Some day, things must change for the long-term thriving of the film industry.