Kolkata: Movie halls give way to malls

With the rising real estate prices, several standalone movie halls of Kolkata are giving way to commercial spaces.

Movie halls, like Lotus, Opera, Orient, Ujjala, Purnasree, Radha, Lighthouse, etc., that are atleast 30 years old, have either been demolished or converted into a shopping-leisure joint.

Most of the standalone movie halls were sold off by the hall-owners to make room for real estate development, like buildings, shopping malls or simply a food-and beverage joint.

Lighthouse was made into a shopping complex that housed CitiMart; Lotus was built into a commercial building, while Ujjala has recently been demolished and is now an open space up for grabs.

Moreover, with 4 multiplexes in the city - Inox City Centre, Inox Elgin Road, 89 Cinemas, and Fame, the cinema-going crowd got bifurcated as now there is a class of people who have the option of paying more and enjoying the comfort and neatness of a multiplex.

"In the face of multiplexes, these standalone movie halls were not viable any more. Moreover, with real estate prices rocketing, most of these hall-owners felt that selling off the properties and investing the money in some other business would be a better proposition. The prices that the hall-owners got for what they set up at least 30 years ago was unbelievable, thanks to the real estate boom," reasoned Shrikant Mohta, director of Lake Mall and Venkatesh Films.

Lake Mall, which is coming up in Kolkata, would house a 4-screen multiplex.

Also, once the multiplexes of South City and Lake Mall are operational, standalone halls in the vicinity like Menoka, Navina, Malancha, Priya, and Basusree, may have to either renovate infrastructure at par with the multiplexes or reduce ticket prices in order to survive.

"There is this threat lurking for Priya movie hall to close down in the face of competition from multiplexes. There is every possibility of it getting sold off for worthwhile real estate propositions," confirmed Arijit Dutta, owner of Priya Cinema, and operator of the Globe movie hall and Star Theatre in Kolkata, Krishti Memari at Burdwan and Gitanjali Complex at Santiniketan.