The holiday on account of Kannada Rajyotsava kept the cash boxes ringing at several business establishments and recreation centres here on Friday. But this was not the case in several cinema halls in the city.
The occupancy rate was poor at a majority of the theatres, especially those screening old Kannada movies much to the anguish of theatre owners, who were expecting good business during the extended weekend.
A government circular restricts screening of non-Kannada movies on November 1, and has made it mandatory to screen at least one Kannada movie everyday in the week. Except five to six theatres that were screening recently released Kannada movies, the occupancy rates in 15 theatres was 15-40 per cent.
New Opera, Balaji Deluxe, Woodlands, Sterling and other theatres which usually screen non-Kannada films were hit hard. New Opera which screened Dandupalya had less than 15 per cent attendance, while for Victory playing at Sterling, it was less than 25 per cent.
The owners said the fact that there were not many new releases on Friday led to the poor turnout.
“Had many Kannada films been released, we would have picked any film and run it for the entire week. Even Raja Huli, the lone Kannada film released on Friday, was a remake of the Tamil film Sundara Pandian,” said a theatre manager.
Another theatre owner said they had no issues with showing only Kannada movies as part of Rajyotsava, but the government which has made it mandatory, should ensure that it gets us an audience.
He said as it was an extended weekend, they would have done good business if they had shown some newly-released non-Kannada films.