Aamir Khan recently made headlines for calling for more Indian cinemas, highlighting the impressive performance of Dhurandhar and comparing India’s 9,000 screens to China’s impressive 100,000. Despite this, film distributor Akkshay Rathi expressed concern, saying that simply increasing the number of screens will not ensure success.
Amir Khan recently said that the country needs more theatres, while talking about the huge success of Ranveer Singh’s Dhurandhar. He suggested that the increase in the number of screens in India would bring more profits to the production companies.
However, film distributor Akshay Rathi disagrees with the actor’s remarks. He responded with a big note on his social media. Let’s look at it.
Movie distributor responds to Amir Khan’s comment that India needs more cinemas
Film distributor and exhibitor Akshay Rathi reacted to Aamir Khan’s statement about fewer screens in India compared to China. he wrote “With all due respect, what was the last film you made that released in every one of the 9,000+ screens in India? Or even on 4500+ screens in Hindi speaking markets? Happy Patel, Laapata Ladies, Sitaare Zameen Par etc.,
had very limited metro-oriented releases and were completely irrelevant to the long tail of the existing exhibition sector.
“Rathi’s fast did not end there as he added, “Trust me when I say this sir, Indian business structures are enterprising enough to build the infrastructure you are talking about in record time, but the fuel for this is content that appeals to the masses of our markets by creating and releasing with some consistency.”
Responding to Aamir Khan’s Dhurandhar example, Akshay Rathi also shared: “You talked about ‘Dhurandhar’ and its potential business if it was released in a hypothetical 15,000 screens. How many films a year produce numbers like Dhurandhar? Or have the same wide geographical impact in terms of attendance in the cities, towns and villages where there is a cinema today? Can theaters that require billions of rupees of capital investment to build and have high operating costs be set up and maintained for 3-4 such films a year, which will significantly impact PandL?”Rathi called Amir Khan’s statement “cute theoretical jargon,” given the content that is made public.
He added, “As an exhibitor, I assure you that my fraternity will leave no stone unturned in creating new screens if content creators like you can start making movies that will find appeal outside the already screen-saturated urban India. I promise, I respect you from the bottom of my heart for the wonderful films you’ve made in your time, many of which remain my all-time favorites.
“Rathi concluded by saying: “However, this statement needed to be announced because it has been made and repeated illogically over the years.
Yes, we need thousands more screens, but before that we need films to create them! Hope to see you play your part in this. We will definitely make our contribution. Best wishes for Ek Din Lahore 1947 and whatever you decide to do next.”
What did Aamir Khan say about screens?
In an interview with Variety India, Aamir Khan shared that India is a big country with different cultures and languages. Therefore, according to the actor, more screens are needed.He said: “If you want to compete with China, for example, they have, I think, one lakh screens. We have 9,000 screens. What is a comparison? We are one-tenth their size in retail outlets.”Citing the example of Ranveer Singh’s film, he said: “Take the example of ‘Dhurandhar’ which earned around Rs.1000 crores. Now imagine if it had been released not on 5,000 screens but on 15,000 screens. Massively! So that’s what I’m trying to say.”He expressed that changes will happen when the number of screens increases. He shared the fact that there are many areas in India where there is no single screen cinema.
