US is selling tickets for $3 to get people back to movies. Will it work in India?

This coming Saturday, September 3, has been declared as National Cinema Day in the United States. Any particular reason? To lure audiences back to the theatres after the Covid slump.

What even is National Cinema Day? For those who happily binge on OTT platforms and have taken a sabbatical from the theatres, National Cinema Day is in the American headlines as major theatre chains like AMC and Cinemark  are offering tickets priced as low as $3 (240 INR). The day is also coinciding with a National Cinema Day in the UK with ticket prices slashed down to £3 (300 INR). 

The one-day event is being organised by the Cinema Foundation, a donor-supported non-profit created this year itself by the US National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO). 

The theatres are also throwing in food discounts such as AMC offering a fountain drink and popcorn combo priced at $5 while Cinemark is discounting its drinks, candy, and small popcorn prices to $3 (plus taxes).  

Of course, the spirit of watching movies and experiencing them on the big screen would be celebrated by a day marked by such a name. The theatres would not only be screening current movies, but Steven Spielberg’s Jaws is also getting an exclusive re-release for September 3. Given that Jaws was the first true blockbuster of Hollywood, the nostalgic significance of National Cinema Day is established. 

Audience expectations uncertain: But are the nostalgic viewers eager to flock back to theatres? Industry experts offer slightly cynical answers. 

NPR film and art critic Bob Mondello in his podcast All Things Considered mentions how young audiences are fully back, as is evident from the success of the latest Spider-Man movie last December and this year’s mega-hits such as Top Gun: Maverick and Minions: Rise of Gru. 

But this audience is still lower than pre-pandemic levels, with older viewers still reluctant to visit the movie hall. 

Commenting on the $3 dollar tickets, Mondello adds, “So with just a few days of summer vacation left, theater owners are throwing a sort of Hail Mary pass, a one-day bargain - any show for $3.”

The organisers are referring to National Cinema Day as a “trial run” and whether it will be a yearly occurrence or not, ultimately depends on the audiences that show up. 

Will this approach work in India? When it comes to movies making more or as much as their budgets, the South and regional industries are still doing much better in the post-pandemic period. The phenomenon of pan-Indian hits like RRR and KGF-2 is also mainstream knowledge for the average Indian moviegoer. 

But as for Bollywood, this has been quite a bad year with stars like Aamir Khan, Ranbir Kapoor, and Akshay Kumar, all delivering box office duds. 

As Indian film trade analyst Komal Nahta puts it, “Bollywood is definitely going through bad days but that’s also because if you look at the releases of the last 6-7 months, all of them are simply bad films. They lack the wow factor that would draw the audience’s attention.”

When asked if an initiative like National Cinema Day would work for a currently-sinking industry like Bollywood, Nahta feels it might be successful but only for “reasonably good films”. 

Film critic, and trade analyst Taran Adarsh replies with a straightforward “no” when asked about such an experiment for Indian multiplexes. Adarsh’s logic lies in the fact that post-pandemic audiences are too used to the ease in accessibility of content that OTT platforms provide viewers. 

Adarsh gives his own experience as a case in point. “Recently, I wished to rewatch some Hrishikesh Mukherjee films so I just resorted to streaming platforms. Even if these films were restored and screened in theatres, many might still not go to the theatres. Only the niche audiences might want to take out the time to go to the big screen.”

The OTT platforms aren’t secure either: While the pandemic was a major boost for streaming services, the streaming environment has become increasingly competitive. Netflix thrived at the cost of video stores being shut and theatres facing lower audiences but the streaming giant itself faces an uncertain future now. 

Netflix’s post-pandemic strategies include layoffs of 150 employees (and 300 employees in a second round of job cuts) and a business plan of reducing the budget of its own original films. Increased competition from Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and Hulu is another major challenge for Netflix to counter. Out here in India, Netflix’s Indian originals have had a mixed track record with local audiences. 

So, even if theatres face an uncertain future, the OTT space isn’t as secure as one might think. It is currently witnessing a clash of titans with Netflix’s monopoly giving way to an unpredictable oligopoly of multiple platforms (with Amazon Prime leading the show).