Amitabh's ‘Uunchai' ‘Sets New Trends In PVR Cinemas

PVR has found out that after the closing of cinemas during the pandemic period, the emotional connection of the film's storyline was missing with the audiences.  Citing the example of the upcoming movie ‘Uunchai’, PVR expects that this movie will break free of the perception of getting the entire family back to its cinemas. 

Directed by Sooraj R. Barjatya, the movie stars Boman Irani, Anupam Kher, Neena Gupta, Amitabh Bachchan, Sarika, Danny Denzongpa. 

The story revolves around three friends, all senior citizens who leave a comfortable life and embark on a trek to the Everest Base Camp. A simple trek turns out to be a personal, emotional, and spiritual journey as they battle their physical limitations and discover the true meaning of freedom.

Gautam Dutta, CEO, PVR stated that through this movie, we can clearly see the revival of movies in cinemas that appeal to family audiences. Clearly ‘Uunchai' is becoming the ‘60+ Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’, the 2011 hit movie where three childhood friends follow their dream."

He further said that while PVR targets all segments of audiences to its cinemas and has dedicated a Monday as a Senior Citizen-focused day, post the pandemic it has seen this important group staying away from watching movies, which could be due to health reasons or otherwise. This was never the case before the pandemic. 

With cars coming packed with friends belonging to this age group bringing their families along, we feel assured that everything is right. In admits for this movie, we are seeing 70 per cent of family audiences comprising of senior citizens. The average transaction size of 2.6 has also gone up significantly.

This movie is giving the right signal to family-oriented movies and our advances for such movies are supporting our belief.

There has been a growing area of concern for the industry which saw direct-to-digital releases of movies when cinemas were shut and audience habits of consuming entertainment changing temporarily. Bollywood movies are the major contributors to the film exhibition business in India contributing the larger pie. 

Cinema is a catalyst to 'together time' for couples, families, friends and peer groups and hence the experience of bonding over the shared experience of a film rates much more than other entertainment avenues.

India is the 5th largest box office market in the world. India has the world’s largest film industry in terms of number of movies produced in a year and one of the World’s largest film market in terms of ticket sales. 

During the pre-covid year 2019, more than 1,833 films were released in India. While Hindi contributed 50 per cent, Regional 38 per cent and Hollywood 12 per cent.  

The Indian film industry is mainly recognized due to Hindi films  on the global stage. However, regional movies are an integral part of the Indian film industry and account for a significant share of the overall box office collections.