Several theatres in Telangana witnessed huge crowds for Mahesh Babu’s Maharshi, which released on Thursday. As planned, single-screen theatres in the state hiked the price of the movie by at least 20% to make more profits, despite Telangana Cinematography Minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav warning against it.
As the theatre owners paid no heed, the minister said that the government will approach the High Court against their decision. The film unit had earlier said that the ticket priced at Rs 80 will be increased to Rs 100, and Rs 100 ticket hiked to Rs 125. Several theatre owners have cashed in on the film’s craze and hiked the price further, according to reports. The hiked prices will continue for a couple of weeks.
On Wednesday, the minister held meetings with officials from Home and Law Departments, along with Telangana State Film Development Corporation, to seek their legal opinion. According to reports, the officials suggested that the theatre owners cannot hike the prices without approval from the state government.
Speaking to media at the Secretariat, the minister said, “It was brought to our notice that 79 theatres have hiked ticket prices. The State government did not give any direction to film producers or theatre owners to increase the ticket price. A few theatres claimed to have increased prices on their own as per High Court orders earlier. We will take legal action against them.”
Increasing the rate of film tickets for big-film releases in Andhra Pradesh has become a norm. In a bid to recover the production money quickly, film producers resort to such unethical practices. However, this is the first time this is being emulated in Telangana.
The theatre owners, however, have a High Court order in their favour, which allows them to increase the ticket prices.
In January 2018, as both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana failed to frame guidelines on movie ticket pricing within the stipulated time period, the Court ruled the decision in favour of the theatre owners.
Responding to the Telangana government’s poor response to the Court, the minister said that the government had constituted a committee to fix the movie ticket prices. He said that the committee also submitted a report to the Cabinet. However, as the General Elections began, the Cabinet could not fix the movie ticket prices, he said.