The cinemas in Maharashtra opened on Friday and it was a muted response generally in the state with limited cinemas open and no real Hindi film to screen. There were films like BABLOO BACHELOR and BHAVAI but these are hardly going to get a response.

The plus was Mumbai city where the public did return in decent numbers for Hollywood films like NO TIME TO DIE and VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE. These films recorded good occupancy in evening shows on Friday and Saturday especially NO TIME TO DIE.

NO TIME TO DIE actually recorded slightly better collections than its last weekend due to Maharashtra opening and this was mainly due to Mumbai city. The film has now collected around 25 crore nett which is 1.50 crore nett behind SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS (the biggest Hollywood grosser post second lockdown) and may edge past it in a week or so.

The multiplex chain Inox held a promotion of free tickets on all shows for an hour across Maharashtra on Friday morning and this saw a huge turnout as they recorded 98% occupancy on these shows and sold over 5500 tickets. This shows the Covid-19 fear is not there with the audience and its going to boil down to communicating cinemas is back across the nation and then content being worth the ticket price.