Akshay Kumar's horror-comedy flick 'Laxmii' premiered on Disney+Hotstar on November 9th. Laxmii was the first big-budget Indian film which was streamed digitally and was not released theatrically in India due to the COVID-19 pandemic, even though it was released in theatres in United Arab Emirates, Fiji, Australia and New Zealand. All in all the film received negative reviews from critics and the audience as well. Now according to an article by trade analyst Komal Nahata, the film has been screening in single-screen cinemas and for it, the cinema owners are using pirated versions of Akshay Kumar starrer through pen drive and are screening in the cinema halls.

Komal Nahata took to Twitter and wrote how Laxmii pirated versions are screened in the single screen cinemas. He tweeted, "BREAKING NEWS: 'Laxmii' has been and is being screened in single-screen cinemas! How's that possible for a film which premiered on a streaming platform and was to bypass the cinema platform? Read on for the shocking drama of 'Laxmii'. Check out his tweet here -

BREAKING NEWS: 'Laxmii' has been and is being screened in single-screen cinemas! How's that possible for a film which was premiered on a streaming platform and was to bypass the cinema platform? Read on for the shocking drama of 'Laxmii'.https://t.co/ZmlsbDNAD6 pic.twitter.com/z577GLy47C

— Komal Nahta (@KomalNahta) November 17, 2020

Well, it is quite shocking to hear the news as just to run their theatres, single-screen owners are using the copied version of 'Laxmii'. On the other side, Suraj Pe Mangal Bhari became the first fresh Hindi film to hit the theatres this Diwali and have collected 75 lakhs on the first day of release. Still, the film is earning a good amount of money at the box-office despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

Talking more on the Laxmii pirated version, the trade analyst said, "For that matter, no distributor will be able to adjust our/their share of Laxmii because nobody holds the distribution rights of the film. The other difference is that in the case of other films, around 2-3% of the screenings used to be illegal but in the case of Laxmii, every screening is illegal."

Overall, even if the makers of Laxmii would agree on screening the film in the theatres even then they wouldn't be able to cover the film budget. So they better opted the digital route in order to release the film.