15000 Screens In India – Aamir’s Impractical Wish?

Bollywood top-league actor Aamir Khan occasionally turns the spotlight with his weird public statements. His recent remarks about cinema halls have once again sparked a major debate within the film industry circles and among trade analysts. 

Speaking to a leading Hollywood news agency, Aamir Khan expressed concern over the number of screens across the country. He emphasized that India needs more theatres like China and USA so that our films could collect bigger revenues. 

The Sitaare Zameen Par actor said India is a vast country but has only 9000 screens, which is very little compared to the number in China and USA where films fetch huge collections. Citing the recent Bollywood blockbuster Dhurandhar as an example, Aamir said the Ranveer Singh’s spy thriller could have notched up massive collections had it released in 15000 screens instead of 5000 only. 

Though there is some logic behind Aamir’s view, commercially it seems impractical for India to have screens on par with countries like China and Japan, due to factors such as difficulties in land acquisition, high construction costs, theatre rents, maintenance expenses, and low occupancies.

Moreover, the dwindling footfalls due to piracy menace and booming OTT markets have led to the closure of many single screens in recent years. On the top of all these market dynamics, the success rate of our films is very meagre and maintaining single screens amid the growing culture of multiplexes is not at all cost effective in the  current day scenario. 

Some industry observers are questioning why Aamir Khan maintained silence all these days when the single screen culture was fast fading away and now expressing concern when it is too late.