Movie theatres in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) are all set to re open from the 4th of December.
The grand return of movies to the city’s theatres would be Christopher Nolan’s much awaited Sci-Fi action thriller Tenet.
The movie will be released in both multiplexes and single screen theatres across Hyderabad.
Movie theatres in Hyderabad would re open after 9 months in the wake of the Novel Coronavirus or COVID-19.
The theatres in the City were shut since the first lockdown was announced in March.
The movie theatre sector, which was in dire straits with the lockdown robbing several thousands of their livelihood, received the much awaited approval to open.
K. Chandrashekar Rao, the Chief Minister of Telangana, approved the re opening of theatres and also allowed film shootings.
The State Government had given the nod to reopen movie halls with a set of precautionary measures to keep the coronavirus at bay, after which theatre owners have been busy making necessary arrangements to reopen cinema halls.
Multiplex chains including PVR Cinemas, Inox, Cinepolis and Mahesh Babu’s AMB cinemas will be screening movies from Friday, the 4th of December.
Though Telangana Exhibitors planned to initially screen movies which were released in OTT platforms such as Amazon Prime Video and Hotstar, permission was not given from these platforms.
Vijender Reddy, secretary of Telangana Exhibitors Association, said 80 % of multiplexes and many single screen theatres were geared up to resume operations. He said, “Sai Dharam Tej’s ‘Solo Brathuke So Better’ scheduled to release for Christmas will bring audiences to theatres and revive the business.”
Speaking to Telangana Today, Balgovind Raj, joint secretary of Telangana Film Chamber, said the seating capacity would be increased depending on the Covid-19 situation. “We will take up necessary measures in theatres to instil confidence among audience,” said Balgovind Raj, who is also the owner of Sudarshan 35 MM and Devi 70 MM at RTC Crossroads.
There are 175 movie screens including over 70 multiplex screens in Greater Hyderabad region and the figure goes up to 600 across the State while the seating capacity in theatres varies from 400 to 1,300.
Stay tuned for further updates.
