Operation Clean Up As Theaters Open on Friday

IMAGE: A worker sanitises seats inside a movie theatre in Mumbai, two days ahead of its reopening on October 22, 2021. All Photographs: Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters

IMAGE: Movie halls in Mumbai and Maharashtra contribute a third of a Hindi film's revenues and the 18-month closure because of the pandemic has ravaged Bollywood.

IMAGE: The Akshay Kumar starrer, Bell Bottom, released last month in theatres all over the country, barring Mumbai and Maharashtra, but was unable to make a mark at the box office, perhaps because the footfalls in the most lucrative threatrical circuit were missing.

IMAGE: Exhibitors, distributors and other Bollywood folk have their fingers crossed that another Akshay movie, Sooryavanshi directed by Rohit Shetty, who has a sure grip on movie tills, to release on Diwali will end the financial famine in the world's biggest movie business.