You are roaming inside a mall; you have shopped till you dropped; you don’t want to go to a theatre and commit two to three hours of your time? So, now, what’s next? Well, you go inside a theatre and watch something for just 30 minutes! Sounds strange? Yes, it is. In their latest bid to lure audiences back to the big-screen experience, multiplex chain PVR-INOX has started a new initiative. Titled Trailers Screening Show, available across India — except in a few states like Tamil Nadu where ticket pricing is fixed — you can pay Re 1 and watch 30 minutes of trailers curated from different industries. 

Exhibitor Akshaye Rathi says, “These are unprecedented times. This is a unique offering to moviegoers, both as a tool and as a way to make them fall in love with the theatrical experience all over again. There are some very interesting experiments underway; this is one of them.”

He cites the example of the recent Cinema Day, where tickets were priced at just Rs. 75 and saw a massive response. “This will tell moviegoers what their moviegoing experience will be like for upcoming films. It doesn’t happen when you watch the trailer on a television or mobile phone, like experiencing a Salman Khan or Tom Cruise film. It gives the audience a glimpse of what it is going to be like if they buy tickets for these films,” adds Rathi.

Trade expert Joginder Tuteja is far from impressed with this move: “This point where a mall-going audience will go to a theatre to relax for 30 minutes was prevalent 20 years ago, when people were generally poor and didn’t have ACs at home. Now people going to the mall would much rather watch reels on their phones. Why will I step into a theatre? These gimmicks don’t make any sense.”

Trade analyst Taran Adarsh agrees, “I am surprised and amused, because the theatres don’t stand to gain anything from an economic point of view.”

Rajender Singh Jyala, chief programming officer, PVR Limited shares that there’s a limitation for the theatres on how many trailers they can play before a film starts: “We thought people watched trailers on their phones and YouTube, so if you give them a chance to watch them on the big screen, it will be a totally different ball game. The impact on small screens is not great. We thought, why not invite the audience to experience all of that for just one rupee? The response has been great. It’s houseful-.”