KOLKATA: Defeating the COVID-19 pandemic blues, Bengali movies 'Kakababur Protyaborton' and 'Baba Baby O' have recorded houseful shows since their release on the big screen on the eve of Saraswati Puja, showing people's growing confidence in watching cinema in theatres, production firms said.
'Kakababur Protyaborton' has earned more than Rs 1 crore since its release in 100 cinema halls across West Bengal on February 4, a spokesperson of production firm SVF told PTI.
"This is the biggest Bengali hit so far this year, and this proves that people are returning to the theatres," she said.
The film, shot in Maasai Mara in Africa, features Prosenjit Chatterjee in the lead role.
"Happy with the amazing response to 'Kakababur Protyaborton' within the few days of release.
As I have already said, some films be better watched on the big screen," director Srijit Mukherji said.
Another big Bengali release, 'Baba Baby O', a film on surrogacy and parenthood starring Jisshu Sengupta in the lead role, witnessed back-to-back houseful shows last weekend in theatres and multiplexes, a spokesperson of Windows Production House said.
"Our film earned Rs 55 lakh in three days.
The audience is loving the unique, out-of-the-box but very real and contemporary content.
It is doing well mostly in urban areas," the spokesperson said.
Another Bengali film 'Tonic', starring Dev, has also created a record considering the pandemic situation in the last two years, running in theatres continuously for over a month.
"Tonic was released on December 24 last year, and it managed to pull the crowd even when COVID-19 cases were on the spiral.
It had managed to pip the new Spiderman sequel in terms of crowd pull.
And to this date, there is at least one show of 'Tonic' in over 50 theatres across the state," a spokesperson of the firm producing the movie said.
Priya Cinema owner Arijit Dutta, whose theatre is screening 'Tonic' among other movies, said that people have shaken off COVID fears and have got back the old habit of watching movies on the big screen.