It has been nearly two weeks since Barbie and Oppenheimer released on July 21, and they continue to rule the screens across the globe. How did theatres in the southern states of India fare in the opening week? With rising ticket and food prices becoming a deterrent, it may be assumed that it takes big releases to bring audiences back to the theatres. However, this does not appear to be the reality uniformly. Also, it should be noted that Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is bucking the global trend in India by faring better than Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. Meanwhile, Karan Johar’s Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani released on July 28 has also been doing well in theatres across India.
Speaking to TNM about theatre attendance during the ‘Barbenheimer’ week, a term used to refer to the simultaneous release of the two big Hollywood films, Tirupur Subramanian, head of the Tamil Nadu Theatre Association said, “Oppenheimer has been doing very well, particularly in metro cities. Comparatively, Barbie is doing mediocrely. I would say Barbie pulled 40% of the crowds that Oppenheimer did. In smaller towns and rural areas, it is still Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One [released on July 12] that has attracted more crowds than either of the new releases.”
A primary factor that seems to deter crowds in small towns and rural areas in Tamil Nadu from watching either Oppenheimer or Barbie is that neither film has been released with Tamil dubbing, as is generally the case with most Hollywood films. Madurai’s Ambika theatre owner echoes Subramanian’s sentiments. “Oppenheimer is considered a movie for upper-class people. And without Tamil dubbing, it’s not attracting crowds. Only three theatres in Madurai are now screening the film–Vetri Theatre, Inox and Gopuram Theatre. When we screened the English original, people came on the first two days and then stopped.”
The lack of Tamil dubbing seems to be a concern with smaller theatres even in a metro city like Chennai. For example, Kamala Theatre’s owner Surya Chidambaram says, “Ours is a single screen. Our primary base is Tamil-speaking audiences. With Hollywood films, under pressure from the distributors, what we normally do is screen the English original until we break even and then switch to the Tamil dubbing or to any new Tamil film that comes out.”
In Kerala, a theatre owner in Thiruvananthapuram said, “Even though the opening weekend for Oppenheimer received a good response, film theatres did not see an extraordinary turnout in the days afterwards. However, it was not the same case in malls, which have IMAX screens. These theatres have been fully booked for days.”
The theatre owner, who wished to be anonymous, added, “It has been really disastrous in the case of Mission Impossible. Only a small number of audiences turned up. It was a similar situation when Avatar: The Way of Water was released last December. English movies are simply not doing very well, even the big releases that you would expect would do well. On the other hand, Tamil movies are running successfully. Maamannan did well and now Siva Karthikeyan's Maaveeran is also getting a good response. In Hindi, Shah Rukh Khan's Pathaan had previously also done well.”
Liberty Basheer, the president of the Kerala Film Federation said, “All three of the recent English films -- Barbie, Oppenheimer and Mission Impossible -- did well in multiplexes in cities. But the smaller theatres have had a poor turnout. Also, English films tend to last only a week or so in Kerala. The number of people going for these films has already begun to dwindle.”
In Karnataka, a Kannada film was able to attract more audiences in rural areas than both the Hollywood biggies during the Barbenheimer week, according to a public relations officer (PRO) who works in the Kannada film industry. However, single-screen theatres are still grappling with the huge losses incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, he said. “Barbie and Oppenheimer did get people to the theatres. We also had a Kannada release Hostel Hudugaru Bekagiddare which garnered a bigger audience in the rural areas. The single screens still suffer as we are not able to recover from the COVID losses. Most single screens close their operations on weekdays as very few people come to watch movies there,” the PRO said.
Inputs from Shivani Kava and Cris