Not willing to act on whim, the cast and crew of the movie decided to investigate the accusations on their own before taking any action.
The team of Antaratma, a Kannada film that has been running in theatres successfully all week, were in for a rude shock when they heard from a section of their fans two days back that the employees of PVR Cinemas at the Forum mall discouraged them from watching the film by telling them that it wasn’t worth the money. What came as a greater shock was that the staff tried to coax the fans into watching a Hindi or Telugu film instead. All this, despite Antaratma running to full house.
Not willing to act on whim, the cast and crew of the movie decided to investigate the accusations on their own before taking any action. The lead actor of the film, Mithun Tejasvi, said, “We didn’t want to jump to conclusions based on the complaints pouring forth from our supporters. So, we decided to investigate the complaints of fans, and indeed we did find that the employees of PVR Cinemas not only discouraged people from viewing our film but were also not promoting it like they would do to any other film.
Though our film is being screened at the theatre, there was not a single poster put up. We found all the posters that we had handed over to them over a month ago, lying in a corner. However, posters of many yet-to-be-released films were all over the place. We requested the authorities at PVR Cinemas to make the necessary changes and put things back in order, but they did not comply. It was then that we decided to stage a protest. We shut down the ticket counters and shouted slogans at the hall until the authorities were compelled to lend us a ear.”
It was not just the posters, but even the fact that Antaratma was not listed in the online booking options of the multiplex that angered the cast and crew. Mithun said that a closed door meeting was later held with Sandeep Shetty, manager of PVR Cinemas in Bangalore, following which orders were issued and things started falling in place.
Online booking for the film was opened and even posters were put up. Also, negotiations were on to increase the number of shows of the film to thrice a day instead of twice. Mithun said, “Since Antaratma is the only film that is running housefull in PVR, we have demanded that they increase the number of shows from two to three per day.”
Meanwhile, the Bangalore office of PVR Cinemas refused to comment on the issue and all media queries were directed to the head office at Delhi. When contacted, CEO of PVR, Amitabh Vardhan, confirmed that there was some confusion at the Bangalore office.
“There was some confusion at PVR Cinemas in Bangalore. The issue has been sorted out between the two parties. I would not like to comment about the new schedule or the issue anymore,” Vardhan said.
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