The owner of a large single screen cinema hall with 700 seats in Central Mumbai watches in trepidation as barely 10-15 people arrive to watch a Marathi film at a weekday show. As the projection rolls, his heart sinks to think of the air-conditioning costs, staff salaries, taxes and overheads that must be paid in crores when his annual income is not even Rs 5 lakh.

Single-screen cinema halls in the state are complaining that multiple govt restrictions have made survival near impossible. One millstone around the neck is that all theatres must screen 44 shows of Marathi movies per year within Mumbai limits, and 112 shows in the rest of the state. Should they fail, their annual licence is not renewed.

In 2023, Maharashtra govt announced it would levy a fine of Rs 10 lakh on halls that fail to fulfil this condition. Theatre owners say most single screens have already shut, this is another nail in the coffin. Marathi films have heart and soul, but few big stars, foreign locales or pre-release publicity to attract spectators.

Viraf Vatcha, secretary of Cinema Owners and Exhibitors Association, India (COEAI), a union of single screen theatre owners, said, "The initial GR (government resolution) to screen Marathi pictures was issued in 1968--but that was a mere recommendation. Subsequently, the state govt began to put pressure on theatres after many more Marathi movies began to be produced." Soon it became a compulsory rule.

In 2009, COEAI filed a petition in Bombay High Court, citing the lack of audience for Marathi movies, difficulty in procuring Marathi films, and questioning why govt was forcing them to popularize Marathi cinema if it could not make the audience watch regional movies.

On the other hand, perceiving a lack of screening opportunities for Marathi cinema, the nodal filmmakers' body Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Chitrapat Mahamandal approached state govt authorities as well as HC to urge theatres to reserve shows for Marathi films.

Vatcha said, "We informed the govt and HC that there is no audience for Marathi films in certain locations. So restricting our licences on this basis and not renewing them is unfair."

South Mumbai single screens such as Sterling, Eros, Excelsior, Regal and theatres in Kurla draw scarcely any viewers for Marathi movies. Vatcha's family-run New Shirin Talkies at Jacob Circle was an 800 seater but barely had any audience for Marathi shows.

“How does one pay property tax, bear the cost of air-conditioning, projection, staff salaries, taxes and overheads if we run to empty theatres? We are not allowed to do any other business on the premises either. So we closed down,” he said.

In 2010, high court passed an interim order saying the petitioner (single screen owners) cannot be burdened to show Marathi pictures and consequently forced to incur losses. "The court twice instructed the state's home ministry, which oversees our industry, to bring all stakeholders together and find an amicable solution," said Vatcha.

The home department formed a committee by selecting five members from the Chitrapat Mahamandal and five from COEAI which submitted its report in 2014. Ten years and 15-20 reminders later, the state govt continues to turn a deaf ear to all exhibitors' woes, they said.

There is another side to the coin. Squeezed for space amid the mammoth Hindi industry, low-budget Marathi cinema is struggling to find suitable options to reach audiences.

Director Ananth Narayan Mahadevan's new Marathi film ‘Aata Vel Zaali’ released on Feb 23. He said, “I am happy you are taking up the issue of Marathi films finding space in theatres. At this very moment, my producer is sitting with an exhibitor trying to negotiate at least a few prime show timings for our film. Unfortunately Maharashtra is the only state where regional cinema is overshadowed by Hindi movies. Marathi films tend to suffer neglect and receive an unfair deal, therefore this uprising (by filmmakers). In other regions you see that Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Bengali films are given pride of place. Here for some reason, our distributors are overwhelmed by the power and prestige of Hindi films. As a result, Marathi cinema has suffered greatly. Despite the Maharashtra govt order to screen Marathi films, we filmmakers are still at loggerheads with theatres seeking a few prime shows. My movie is based on the subject of euthanasia and talks to senior citizens. They may miss it if we screen just one show, that too at 9 am.”

Mahadevan approached a leading cinema in the Maharashtrian heartland of Dadar to screen his film. "But they sought a rent amount of Rs 1 lakh which we cannot afford. Why not devise a revenue sharing model like multiplexes do? Single screen halls are shooting themselves in the foot and not giving good Marathi cinema a chance to breathe either," the director said.

Meghraj Rajebhosle, president of the Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Chitrapat Mahamandal, understands the plight of single screen owners even though he is on the opposite side of the fence. He said, "Single screens are large theatres with 800-1,000 capacity that are unable to fill seats for Marathi movies. So I think the govt should utilize its own vast properties to build small theatres of 100-200 seat capacity and promote regional cinema in partnership with private entities on a percentage sharing basis. That way exhibitors and producers will both earn revenue. We are willing to cooperate in this effort."

While the Marathi screening rule applies to large corporate-run multiplexes too, it is single screens that feel suffocated. Their revenues and expenses are a world apart.

Prakash Chaphalkar is president of the Multiplex Association of India, but was himself forced to close six of his single screen theatres in Ratnagiri and Sangli. "Multiplexes and single screens are on entirely different planes. While multiplexes can apportion one small hall out of four or five to show a Marathi movie, single screens have to allot the only hall they have. Approximately 100 Marathi pictures are released each year but not even 5% are a success. They are like vegetables which become rotten if not consumed in time."

Chaphalkar says screening regional movies is a political issue. "Also remember the Maharashtra govt gave tax incentives to multiplexes in 2002 and told them they would have to show Marathi movies in return. But single screens receive no incentive. They are dependent on ticket revenue for every little expense. And distributors are unwilling to give them Marathi films if the locality does not have a sizable population of Maharashtrians. It is multiplexes that consume the entire content of the city," said Chaphalkar.

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.”