Singham Returns v/s Mardaani: Exhibitors to back YRF's Mardaani

Singham Returns phenomenal opening at the box-office last weekend seems to delighted its producers to no end. Speculations are already rife that makers are gunning for an uninterrupted screen run at the box-office in the 2nd week as well. Inside sources claim that that the producers are keen to get their movie the same number of screens in the 2nd week as it continues to receive now. The only glitch here being that this Friday there is another big release lined up - YRF's Mardaani. With Singham Returns going great guns, sources claim that Mardaani will have to jostle for screen space when it releases this week. However, eminent distributors who we spoke to feels this won't be the case and Mardaani will end up receiving enough screens to run its show. Says Shyam Shroff, "I don't think this situation will arise here. In a week, easily two movies can be released and after weekend the collections of every movie tends to drop. And also to put it bluntly, Mardaani is a Yashraj movie and they have blockbusters released every year. So I am sure the exhibitors will support them this time too." Eminent distributor Ramesh Sippy feels that it is too early to reach such a conclusion and feels Mardaani will get ample screens when it opens this Friday. Explains Ramesh, "It's too premature to comment on this issue. Even if a situation like this occurs, I am sure the producers of both films will sort the issue out for themselves. And in any case, it is a bit too early to say. Let a few days pass and then we will have a better idea. Issues like these are not sorted out before Tuesday or Wednesday because finally you will get to see the show timings of a new release in newspapers on either on Thursday or Friday morning and not before that." Ramesh also opines that in case of such an eventuality the issue would be resolved through cooperation. "Not many people will not refuse to cooperate because all these people are also A-grade producers." While multiplexes still may offer enough screens for many movies to run simultaneously, single screens is where the real battle would be fought. When we visited Chandan cinema yesterday, even those selling tickets in black were running out of tickets leading to houseful shows of Singham Returns. The question is would single screens be able to give enough screens to Mardaani at the expense of Singham Returns which is currently running at full steam. Says Kapil Agarwal of UFO Movies, "Single screens too these days can run multiple shows of different movies. I have seen single screens that have beamed four different movies a day. In such case they would run two shows of the previous week's release and two shows of the current week's release. So there are enough screens available. Today on an average, we release 30 movies in different languages per week. There are weeks when there are 7 or 8 Hindi movies being released on the same day. Now all of them get adequate screen space. So far as multiplexes are concerned, they have enough number of screens. Similarly, in single screens because of digitization, gone are the days when they used to be stuck with one movie which was played using reel. Today since everything has gone digital, these single screens program five or six shows a day of four different movies. So for Mardaani to get any screen space even if Singham Returns goes into the 2nd week with the same number of screens wouldn't be an issue." Well, the opinions of distributors and experts notwithstanding, it would be interesting to see the number of screens that Mardaani receives vis-a-vis Singham Returns.