A popular single screen cinema chain in the Western suburbs has decided against running Aamir Khan-starrer 'pk', which is releasing today in over 4,000 screens across India. Reason? It is objecting to the film distributors' call for doubling the ticket prices. Consequently, the film will not be screened at Gaiety Galaxy as well as at Maratha Mandir, which is in South Mumbai.
Manoj Desai, managing director of G-7 cinema chain, says, "We were informed by Vinay Choksi, the person in charge of our cinema booking, that the distributors want us to increase the ticket price by two times. But, I have turned down the demand and replaced the film with Rajinikanth's 'Lingaa'." He said the distributors had asked for the upper stall rates to be raised from Rs 80 to Rs 150 and for the balcony prices to go up from Rs 100 to Rs 250-Rs 300. "My audience cannot afford such costly tickets so I decided not to run the film," he adds.
Meanwhile, a few other single screen cinemas in Maharashtra and Gujarat have been haggling over increasing the theatre rentals for themselves so it is unclear if they would stick to their current rates.
While director Rajkumar Hirani was not available for comment, a source close to the film says, "We are releasing 'pk' in all single screens except Manoj Desai's theatre. We are not happy with certain malpractices associated with their theatre. We don't want the audience to suffer due to this."
