HTLS 2020: Will Christopher Nolan’s Tenet Be Able To Bring Back Audiences To The Theatres In India?

The cinemas and film industries have suffered a major setback due to the Covid-19 lockdown in India. The theatres were one of the first places to shut down and the last to open after a series of unlocks in the month of October. If few old releases and theaters re-opening in select places with only 50% occupancy wasn’t setback enough there’s a need to re-instill confidence in the audiences to get back to theatres and there’s only one way around it – big releases.

Since the re-opening of cinemas and a few small fresh releases the next big hope is set on Christopher Nolan’s Tenet which is finally ready to release in India on December 4. Unlike Nolan’s previous films this Hollywood movie has faced the brunt of the pandemic but at the end of the day the filmmaker’s movies are an experience best designed for theatres and with a big audience watching out for it brings some hope.

Talking about whether Tenet be able to increase footfall in theatres was Ajay Bijli (Chairman and MD, PVR Ltd.) on Day 4 of the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit. Echoing hope he said, “Tenet is a slightly confusing storyline, so even worldwide, the box office stopped at $350 million, as opposed to $1 billion that a Christopher Nolan would normally do… But generally speaking, people’s pent-up appetite is so much that I think Tenet on December 4 will work.”

He also said that once there’s a vaccine things will ultimately bounce back to where they were for cinemas. Speaking on the OTT boom he mentioned cinemas give a filtration process to OTT platforms to able place the right value on the content they choose to buy. He feels that the model will continue for a while. Talking about the tectonic shift of entertainment from cinemas to OTT this year Ajay added, "I don’t blame anyone for what happened in last 8-9 months, streaming services were deprived of content and you had filmmakers who had ready content. Releasing films theatrically makes economic sense, you cannot change economic rationale of business, which is to release films theatrically."

There’s hope for the arrival of the Covid-19 vaccine and lots of big films in 2021, hopefully Tenet will set a better tone for the new year which has many big Bollywood films lined up.