BHUBANESWAR: The ‘Raja’ market for Odia cinema is booming again. Babushaan Mohanty’s new movie, ‘Bou Buttu Bhuta’ and Sabyasachi Mishra’s ‘Ananta’ released ahead of the three-day festival, have been running to full houses ever since. Yet, the lack of theatres continues to be a cause of worry for the makers.
While ‘Bou Buttu Bhuta’ has been directed by Jagdish Mishra, ‘Ananta’ is by national award-winning filmmaker Sabyasachi Mohapatra. In fact, Babushaan’s film has broken all the previous day-1 box office collection records in Odia cinema. Another first in the industry was the midnight release of ‘Bou Buttu Bhuta’. The film released on Wednesday midnight and earned `51.2+ lakh on the first day, breaking the box office record of Anubhav Mohanty whose film ‘Karma’ had earned `37.20 lakh on its first day in Dussehra last year.
The box office collection of ‘Bou Buttu Bhuta’ has already crossed `2 crore now. Similarly, ‘Ananta’ is based on ‘Randi Pua Ananta’ written by legendary writer Fakir Mohan Senapati. It tells the story of Ananta, essayed by Sabyasachi, who sacrifices his life to save his village from a devastating flood. While the box office collection of ‘Ananta’ is not known yet, the movie has also had a good opening.
While ‘Bou Buttu Bhuta’ released across 60 theatres including single screens, multiplexes and cineplexes, ‘Ananta’ was released in 40 on June 12. In addition, ‘Ananta’ has been released in Bengaluru, Chennai, Pondicherry, Mumbai, Pune and Delhi, and plans are on to release it in Coimbatore and Tirupati soon.
“Both the stories have been received well by cine-lovers and for ‘Raja’, the films are running to packed shows every day in both single screens, cineplexes and multiplexes. But a cause of concern is that there are many pockets where the films haven’t reached due to lack of cinema halls. Besides, ticket prices are high because of the lack of screens,” said a film distributor Prashant B. According to a survey done by Industries department post-Covid, there were about 52 cinema halls including multiplexes in the state with Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Rourkela and Berhampur accounting for the majority. Eight are in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack has three.
Rourkela and Berhampur have four each. Several places including Puri do not have a cinema hall. “It is true that there are many places where we haven’t been able to show our film due to the lack of halls. We have placed a proposal before the state government to reopen theatres so that more and more people are able to see cinema at an affordable cost,” said ‘Ananta’ director Mohapatra.