MovieMax opens seven-screen property in Hyderabad

Cineline India Ltd, owned by the Kanakia Group, which has interests in real estate including hotels, has re-entered the Indian film exhibition business by launching Movie Max, a multiplex chain brand and has opened a seven-screen property in Hyderabad.

“Our aim at MovieMax is to reach out to the audiences in maximum capacity and to give them a good experience for an outing. All our cinemas would be equipped to showcase films with the best of technology and give people a wholesome experience with best seats, F&B and comfort of being at a premium property,” Ashish Kanakia, chief executive officer, MovieMax Cinemas said in a statement.

MovieMax believes there is a significant opportunity to grow India’s total screen count and for new companies to establish themselves even as the PVR-INOX merger creates a formidable entity. Cineline intends to launch 75-100 new screens a year with an investment of ₹2-2.5 crore per property and is targeting the budget cinema segment.

For starters, India’s screen count dwindled during the pandemic and currently there are 8,000 screens in the country compared to China’s nearly 80,000. Further, the language barriers in India’s film industry have blurred and dubbed south Indian movies are making inroads into the Hindi-speaking markets with films like RRR and K.G.F: Chapter 2 most recently. Gujarati and Marathi films also have a hold on the audiences.

In short, the popularity of regional language films is an added advantage for exhibitors as they have more content to play with and greater chances of some of it being a hit.

The Indian film exhibition space remains largely underserved and could do with more players. As far as screen density goes, India lags miles behind countries like the US, Canada and China with six screens per million of population. In comparison, China has 30 screens per million of population while the US has 125 screens.