MUMBAI: Producers and plex owners failed to thrash out a solution once again, fighting over revenue shares and the way movies need to be distributed across theatre chains.
At a crucial meeting held today afternoon at a five-star hotel in Mumbai,
the United Producers and Distributors Forum (UPDF) and the multiplex owners renewed their spat.
The bone of contention was the distribution strategy of release. While the producers felt they had the right to select the theatres where they wanted their films to release, the plex owners demanded that the supply of prints should be across all the multiplexes.
“On this point there was no consensus and unfortunately the talks failed again,” a film producer says on request of anonymity.
On their part, the multiplex owners offered their revenue share terms. For the first week of release, they were willing to part with 50 per cent, in line with the UPDF demand. But for week 2, the share of 42.5 per cent is something that the producers did not agree with as it was three per cent below their asking share. Similarly, multiplexes were willing to part with 32.5 per cent and 27.5 per cent in weeks 3 and 4, but producers are agreeable to 40 per cent and 30 per cent respectively.
Sources say the meeting was attended by producers like Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Ramesh Sippy, Ravi Chopra, Sunil Lulla, Manmohan Shetty, Ramesh Taurani, Vipul Shah, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, Harry Baweja and Sajjid Nadiadwala.
Following the stalemate, producers are preparing to release their films at single-screen theatres and stand-alone multiplexes from 29 May.
This week two films – Detective Naani in Hindi and Nishani Dava Angtha in Marathi – are being released in multiplexes and single-screens in Maharashtra.
Multiplexes have taken a Rs 1.42 billion hit since producers have choked supply of their new Hindi movies from 4 April, according to Indiantelevision.com estimates.
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