Pathaan: Shah Rukh craze is real as Bengali films are forced to take a backseat

In a few more hours and Shah Rukh Khan fans will be able to watch their star on big screens after four years. The SRK, Deepika Padukone, and John Abraham spy action thriller is all set to start with a thunderous opening with almost all the shows on the first day pre-booked. Meanwhile, the current Bengali films, including Dev and Mithun Chakraborty’s Projapoti, Prosenjit Chatterjee and Kaushik Ganguly’s Kaberi Antardhan, Rituparna Sengupta’s Maayakumari and several others. 

Most of the single-screen theatres, including Priya Cinema, and Basusree, have Pathaan at all their shows. Arijit Dutta of Priya said, “I am a businessman. Given the craze of Pathaan, I have no choice but to make room for it.” 

Also read: Pathaan: After four years of hiatus, Shah Rukh Khan takes Kolkata theatres by storm 

Satadeep Saha of Ajanta has managed to keep one show secured for Projapati at 3 pm. Meanwhile, the showtimes of Bengali films got affected at multiplexes also. Ujjal Biswas of PVR cinemas said, “We are trying to rehabilitate the Bengali films but the showtimes will be affected and the number of shows will also go down.”

Meanwhile, about five single-screen theatres, including Navina, Asoka Behala, Minar, Bijoli, and Chabighar, have no shows of Pathaan. Navin Choukhani of Navina Cinema said, “The distributor of Pathaan demanded that we take all the other films off our theatre. Why should I do that? Projapoti is doing good business. It would have been unfair to the film. I refused.”