With the imposition of a night curfew in Kerala from December 30 to January 2, theatres in the state are restricted from screening late-night shows during the same period, the state government announced on Tuesday.
The decision to impose a night curfew comes in the wake of the spread of Omicron, the new variant of Covid-19, in the state. The curfew will start at 10 pm and end at 5 am, aiming to limit crowding during the New Year festivities.
Speaking to Silverscreen India, Renjith Paul, owner of EVM theatre groups and joint secretary of Film Exhibitors United Organisation of Kerala (FEUOK), said, “The night curfew will come into effect on Thursday and will continue till Sunday. For these four nights, we will not be running night shows that usually begin at around 9 pm. We will reschedule these shows to sometime in the day. This shouldn’t cause any major disruption since we don’t have a big lineup of films next week.”
Sony Thomas, the organisation’s vice president, who also owns Ganam Movies in Kattanam, noted that the Antony Varghese-starrer Ajagajantharam, Soubin Shahir‘s Meow, and Kunjeldho, featuring Asif Ali, are the Malayalam films that were released last week. Of these, Ajagajantharam is doing well and bringing a lot of audience to the theatres, he said. “I am running five shows for Ajagajantharam and the first and second shows are housefull. Only during weekdays, matinee shows are not houseful. There are four shows per day for Kunjeldho and three for Meow. Both these films are doing average business. And other language films like Spiderman and Puspha are continuing to fare well,” he added.
The exhibitors also mentioned that they are pinning their hopes on some of the big releases scheduled for the beginning of next year. These include Dulquer Salmaan-starrer Salute on January 14, Pranav Mohanlal‘s Hridayam on January 22, and the Nivin Pauly-led Thuramukham on January 20.
Theatres in Kerala reopened on October 25 post the Covid-second wave hiatus. They have been functioning at only 50% seating capacity since, with the government not permitting them to increase the occupancy even for Marakkar: Lion of the Arabian Sea.
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The chances for an increase in the occupancy now are bleaker, Renjith said, due to the spread of Omicron in the state. “Even if we don’t get permission for 100% occupancy, we hope to continue running the theatres adhering to the prevailing SOP for some more time without any hindrance,” he added.
Meanwhile, Kerala has reportedly seen a total of 64 Omicron cases so far. The state, on Monday, recorded 1,636 fresh Covid-19 cases, taking the total number of active cases in the state to 21,379.