Twenty four hours after the PM's speech, two Bollywood filmmakers whose films were to open this Friday have pushed the releases to a later date. Goutam Jain, the producer of the horror drama, Saansein, reasons that “it would be difficult for the common man to prioritise a film-going experience when busy changing currencies“.

Shakil Hashmi who is co-producing and distributing 30 Minutes has also moved the release to December 9 and admits to having suffered a Rs 2-crore loss. “People are panicked and it's not advisable to release films over the next two-three weeks,“ he says, asserting that since the entertainment industry is one of the largest tax-payers, it should have been exempted like hospitals, post offices and railway stations.“The entire distribution and exhibition network has been digitised and there is no black money involved in the purchase of movie tickets, especially in multiplexes.“

Meanwhile, Tum Bin 2 filmmaker, Anubhav Sinha, ran a poll on the social media on how many days before people will have enough cash in hand to go to the movies? Within four hours 41 per cent people said it would take “over 10 days“ before they would be ready to go watch a movie.
-----------------------
After Modi trashes Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency, producer of this week’s release decides to put off film till later
Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; November 10, 2016)

With Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s shock announcement over demonitisation last night, Bollywood seems to be already battling the repercussions. The producer of this week’s release, Saansein, Goutam Kumar Jain has decided to zero in on another date to release the film in theatres. The horror romance features Rajniesh Duggal, Sonarika Bhadoria, Hiten Tejwani and Neetha Shetty.

Speaking to hitlist, Goutam said, “It doesn’t make sense releasing a film in these circumstances. Our film is targetted at the mass viewer. Not everyone has [debit/credit] cards. They deal in cash. With Rs 500 and Rs 1000 discarded, they would want to keep their existing cash reserve to fulfil basic needs like grocery and medicines and not spend it on movie tickets. We run the risk of heavy losses if we do [release the film].”

Multiplexes had turned away viewers flashing high denomination currency even before the clock struck midnight on Tuesday. Although ATMs are set to be functional from tomorrow, the day of the film’s release, Goutam says it’s likely that things will limp back to normalcy only in a couple of weeks. “We will be holding an internal meeting today to announce the revised release date. It is going to be difficult for small producers. We plan our release and marketing on a shoestring budget. This sort of sudden announcement means we have to figure a promotional plan from scratch,” he added.