Even as the return of Bollywood blockbusters to the big screen fuels what theatre owners hope could be the start of a post-Covid box office recovery, the once-teeming Central Plaza in Girgaum is reckoning with a heartbreak. The horseshoe-shaped cinema theatre designed like an opera house — which for nine decades played host to a well-heeled audience — is likely to emerge from the pandemic as a part-commercial, part-residential complex.

“It had a glorious history and even when multiplexes came to dominate, we kept pace with the times, changed the acoustics and brought in the 2K digital projection system. We believed we’d have continued patronage but the Covid-OTT invasion has been too huge,” said Sharad Doshi, owner of Central Plaza, which has been drawing thin crowds for almost a decade. “Also, our children don’t want to get tied up in a business that's steadily declining.”

It’s been a while that single screens across the city have been falling like ninepins to the juggernaut of VCRs, cable and satellite TV and then the rise and rise of multiplexes and OTT platforms. And now, overpowered by the pandemic, these theatres are shutting down at a dizzying rate.

If Mumbai had about 136 single screen cinemas with an approximate seating capacity of 99,000 before multiplexes arrived, today those numbers have dwindled to 69 out of which 20% have still not reopened despite the unlocking, according to the Cinema Owners & Exhibitors’ Association of India (COEAI). While the causes for it are the usual suspects — streaming videos, upkeep of an old cavernous building, real estate costs and shrinking patronage — cinema owners say that rigid government policies have dealt the final blow.

“It has become impossible to run a single screen theatre. The average occupancy was 8-15% even before the lockdown,’’ said Nitin Datar, COEAI president.

“Due to mounting losses, taxation, maintenance, electricity bill, salaries and Coronavirus, very few single screen cinemas will stay open in the future,” said deputy president Viraf Vatcha. “State government policies for single screen cinemas have become detrimental for the owners,’’ he added.

Vatcha, who owns New Shirin Talkies at Jacob Circle, said that with 801 seats, his theatre barely managed to sell 25 to 30 tickets per show. “Most of the shows would have to be cancelled since it would be economically unviable to operate at that low occupancy. Many such single screen cinemas in Mumbai were selling tickets as low as Rs 30 since they would have no audience if ticket prices were raised,’’ he said.

Datar added that even a big banner film runs for not more than two weeks in a single screen theatre. “Some owners are holding on due to sentimental reasons or have another source of income,’’ he said.

A theatre owner, who did not want to be named, said the big collections are only during six weeks of the year. Another six to ten weeks record average collections. “What do we do for the rest of the year?"

Architect Vilas Nagalkar, who consults the Association, said single screen owners are being compelled by the state to carry on the business even though it is not financially viable. “The state policy allows owners to redevelop their properties but with a condition that they retain a theatre one-third the size of the existing one. Many theatre plots in Mumbai have little open space and it becomes very difficult to comply with these diktats,’’ he said.

Nagalkar added that because of these restrictions, new entrants do not want to enter this business and get tied. Furthermore, the location of the theatres on the main roads without a boundary or car park, makes it impossible to redevelop the property with no relaxations from the government.

“If an old 800-seater single screen cinema owner wants to convert it into four single screens with 200 seats in each without altering the structure, the permission is unprocurable. One screen will be considered as the old screen and the other three will be considered as new ones and hence new rules shall be applied, which are impossible to follow on an old property,’’ said Vatcha, pointing that this survival script may hardly hold any possibility of resurrection.

A tragedy for decades-old movie houses that once anchored the city’s flourishing film industry from the Thirties. A pensive Rafiq Baghdadi, city historian and chronicler of the Mumbai film industry’s formative years, recalled how nine decades ago, as many as 19 cinemas came up back-to-back on the kilometre-long stretch of Grant Road including New Roshan Talkies, Nishat Cinema, Novelty Cinema, Royal Cinema, Imperial Cinema, Alfred Talkies, Daulat Talkies, Taj Talkies and Gulshan. It was no happy accident.

“This was, after all, a neighbourhood with a ready audience for the cinemas with the red light area, cotton mills, Parsi colonies, Chinatown and keema-pav eateries buzzing in its vicinity. It became an egalitarian space where no one questioned anyone’s religion or caste, people found comfort,” says Baghdadi, recounting how each theatre — owned mostly by Parsis and Bohras — had its distinct identity. “The acoustics of Capitol Cinema were designed to contain the sound of crying children, chai-samosa was an advent of Metro and most of the movie halls came up on a cemetery in the neighbourhood mohalla.”

As he looks back at the once luxurious “movie palaces” with towering screens, grand staircases and opulent lobbies with lush carpeting now reduced to crumbling shells with dusty broken seats, abandoned projector rooms and shattered glass booths, Baghdadi wonders: “Why don’t people who make movies and live in a city that is the hub of Indian cinema take interest in their own history? A lot could be achieved if a group was formed to revive these spaces as a heritage experience.”