PVR launches south India's first Director's Cut in Bengaluru

PVR Cinemas on Friday launched the first Director's Cut in south India at Rex Walk on Brigade Road in the city, which will provide a blend of watching a film and getting premium hospitality, giving movie buffs a unique experience.

PVR Cinemas on Friday launched the first Director's Cut in south India at Rex Walk on Brigade Road in the city, which will provide a blend of watching a film and getting premium hospitality, giving movie buffs a unique experience. The new Director's Cut has 243 seats in its five luxurious thematic auditoriums that have been designed to offer an unparalleled experience, PVR Managing Director Ajay Bijli said.

The new Director's Cut has 243 seats in its five luxurious thematic auditoriums. (Photo: Amal KS/HT PHOTO)

According to him, the property is equipped with best technological offerings, plush leather recliners, 4K laser projection system and razor-sharp image quality along with 7.1 Dolby surround system and Real-D 3D technology. "The auditorium will have 1.2 metres' legroom and 750 mm seat width. You've got a call button, you've got a swivel seat, you’ve got torch light, and therefore there will be service on seats. I think food and beverages is phenomenal, offering all sorts of cuisines," Bijli told PTI.

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Regarding ticket prices, the PVR MD said it is looking at averaging it out to about ₹900 currently. There will also be dynamic and flexible pricing on weekends, peak hour and weekdays to meet all type of consumers, he added. Bijli said PVR Limited opened its first Director’s Cut in 2011 in Delhi with an idea to attract people to come to cinema theatres who wanted a different experience and the response they got was 'phenomenal'.

The company is planning to set up Director's Cut movie halls in Noida, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune and Chandigarh, he added. Bijli also said the latest launch in Bengaluru is the 884th screen of PVR Limited which opens 100-odd screens every year. "This quarter itself, we have 20 more screens coming up." To a question on the performance in the last two quarters in the wake of an alleged social media boycott, he said the boycott did not really impact PVR much.

"There has been a little up and down. The first quarter was just phenomenal when we got almost 25 million people in our cinemas. The second quarter, we got about 18 million. But the volatility did not happen due to any social media boycott, according to me. The volatility only happened because of the content," he explained. The PVR MD attributed the below par business performance to the poor content of the films instead of the social media boycott.

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"Sometimes, consumers connect with the cinema and sometimes they don't. So when they connect, obviously box office revenues go up and if they don't connect, then of course the volatility brings the footfalls down," Bijli said. He, however, was optimistic about the Indian market for the diversity it offers, and the Indian consumers' habit of watching movies on the big screen. Bijli sought to downplay the effect of Over-the-Top (OTT) platforms impacting the film industry.

He said, "The noise levels of OTT went very high because of the pandemic when cinemas were shut. Now that the movies have come back, things are changing fast." "The OTT is a coexistence of consumption of content. In fact, it doesn't impact because theatrically when the movie gets released it sets the benchmark -- the quantitative benchmark and the qualitative benchmark," Bijli added.