Without hesitation, Kamalika Ghosh found herself immersed in the nostalgic charm of the 1973 Hrishikesh Mukherjee film Abhimaan, starring Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan, in a nearly full PVR theatre in 2022.
Delhi resident Ghosh, one of the zillion buffs who had to consume movies on mobile screens during the COVID-19 pandemic, was ecstatic after finding out that though there were barely any new movies hitting the screens, PVR was rereleasing Amitach Bachchan’s old classics to mark his birthday.
“This must have worked for them because then an Imtiaz Ali festival happened. And I watched Tamasha on the big screen again,” Ghosh reminisces. So when Shah Rukh Khan's movies returned to the theatres, being a die-hark SRK fan she did not miss those either as, apart from her love for the actor, she felt “nothing can match a theatre experience”.
It was a similar experience for colleagues Asmita Pant and Anand Singha when Harry Potter films returned to the theatres in June 2023. Despite being ardent muggles, the two never got tickets to watch the Potter's magical world on the big screen until then.
“As I sat still, eagerly awaiting to watch Harry and the wizarding world on the big screen for the first time, it seemed like someone had used the time-turner. I returned in time when a six-year-old me sat transfixed in front of the television screen,” Pant shares.
Anand, meanwhile, was hit with the realisation that he had turned a quarter-century old and the magic he felt when he first watched Potter movies on small screens would never be quite the same again.
When Waheeda Rehman got to know Guide, a classic 1965 movie featuring her was going to be rereleased along with other movies to mark Dev Anand’s birth centenary in 2023, she had expressed doubt. Only later she was shocked to know the shows were sold out.
The dull phase of the movie world ebbed with big releases hitting the screens but lately, there has been another dry stretch owing to the Lok Sabha Elections 2024 and the Indian Premier League (IPL). Both events attract a lot of eyeballs and producers "prefer" choosing launch dates that would not clash.
To counter this, movie trade analyst Taran Adarsh backs rereleasing movies to “end dull and dry phases”. He underlines that it was a regular practice to rerelease successful movies in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.“In fact, the thriving re-issue market would fetch additional revenue for producers/right holders in those days,” he wrote on X.
Adarsh rued the “genuine scarcity of content” and said the exhibition sector in particular is feeling the heat.
Hindi distributors of SS Rajamouli’s magnum opus RRR (2022) recently announced the rerelease of the movie this May 10. And April 17 saw the rerelease of Mani Rathnam's Raavan in select theatres.
The rerelease trend seems to be working well in the south, too. The makers of the 2004 Tamil film Ghilli, which ran for more than 200 days in theatres and was the highest-grosser Tamil movie of that year, wanted to reignite that success on the 20th anniversary on April 20, 2024.
And their bet has worked, as some reports show. The film’s remasterd version, starring Thalapathy Vijay and Trisha, apparently made a box office collection of ₹30 crore in just two weeks in contrast with the collections of ₹50 crore when the firm was first released in 2004. According to Koimoi, Ghilli secured the third spot among the highest-grossing Tamil films in 2024, dethroning even Rajnikanth’s Lal Salaam.
1998 superhit Kannada film A, which launched director Upendra as a hero, is also slated to be rereleased on May 17. In fact, on the same day, the 2005 film Anniyan, a blockbuster hit and rereleased in Telugu as Aparichithudu, will again be released in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
Ajith Kumar’s Mankatha also returned to the theatres after 13 years in May. The 2017 Kannada movie Anjani Putra, featuring late actor Puneeth Rajkumar, is also set for a rerelease, as per reports.
Latching on to the flavour even the producer of another of Vijay's movies is taking his movie to the silver screen again. “Get ready, Vijay fans! We have an exciting announcement that is sure to get your hearts racing!” producer and distributor Karan Ayngaran wrote, adding the 2009 movie Villu is slated for a rerelease in theatres on June 21 on the eve of Thalapathy Vijay’s 50th birthday.
PVR Inox executive director Sanjeev Kumar Bijli told a publication recently that the multiplex chain always believed that there is an audience beyond traditional movie screenings. This, Biji believes, encourages them to relaunch old hits, as well as experiment with live matches and big events like the Ayodhya Ram Mandir inauguration.
India would be done with voting by June 1 and cricketers would wrap up the IPL before that on May 27. But the big event for cricket-crazy Indians, the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, starts just after the Lok Sabha Election 2024 voting ends on June 1.
And Adarsh says it is “high time” distributors rerelease movies “especially in mass pockets” till the regular flow begins in the second half of 2024. Rereleasing successful films in cinemas also helps reintroduce those films to an all-new audience besides reigniting the nostalgia for many, he quips.
Delhi resident Ghosh, one of the zillion buffs who had to consume movies on mobile screens during the COVID-19 pandemic, was ecstatic after finding out that though there were barely any new movies hitting the screens, PVR was rereleasing Amitach Bachchan’s old classics to mark his birthday.
“This must have worked for them because then an Imtiaz Ali festival happened. And I watched Tamasha on the big screen again,” Ghosh reminisces. So when Shah Rukh Khan's movies returned to the theatres, being a die-hark SRK fan she did not miss those either as, apart from her love for the actor, she felt “nothing can match a theatre experience”.
It was a similar experience for colleagues Asmita Pant and Anand Singha when Harry Potter films returned to the theatres in June 2023. Despite being ardent muggles, the two never got tickets to watch the Potter's magical world on the big screen until then.
“As I sat still, eagerly awaiting to watch Harry and the wizarding world on the big screen for the first time, it seemed like someone had used the time-turner. I returned in time when a six-year-old me sat transfixed in front of the television screen,” Pant shares.
Anand, meanwhile, was hit with the realisation that he had turned a quarter-century old and the magic he felt when he first watched Potter movies on small screens would never be quite the same again.
When Waheeda Rehman got to know Guide, a classic 1965 movie featuring her was going to be rereleased along with other movies to mark Dev Anand’s birth centenary in 2023, she had expressed doubt. Only later she was shocked to know the shows were sold out.
The dull phase of the movie world ebbed with big releases hitting the screens but lately, there has been another dry stretch owing to the Lok Sabha Elections 2024 and the Indian Premier League (IPL). Both events attract a lot of eyeballs and producers "prefer" choosing launch dates that would not clash.
To counter this, movie trade analyst Taran Adarsh backs rereleasing movies to “end dull and dry phases”. He underlines that it was a regular practice to rerelease successful movies in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.“In fact, the thriving re-issue market would fetch additional revenue for producers/right holders in those days,” he wrote on X.
Adarsh rued the “genuine scarcity of content” and said the exhibition sector in particular is feeling the heat.
Hindi distributors of SS Rajamouli’s magnum opus RRR (2022) recently announced the rerelease of the movie this May 10. And April 17 saw the rerelease of Mani Rathnam's Raavan in select theatres.
The rerelease trend seems to be working well in the south, too. The makers of the 2004 Tamil film Ghilli, which ran for more than 200 days in theatres and was the highest-grosser Tamil movie of that year, wanted to reignite that success on the 20th anniversary on April 20, 2024.
And their bet has worked, as some reports show. The film’s remasterd version, starring Thalapathy Vijay and Trisha, apparently made a box office collection of ₹30 crore in just two weeks in contrast with the collections of ₹50 crore when the firm was first released in 2004. According to Koimoi, Ghilli secured the third spot among the highest-grossing Tamil films in 2024, dethroning even Rajnikanth’s Lal Salaam.
1998 superhit Kannada film A, which launched director Upendra as a hero, is also slated to be rereleased on May 17. In fact, on the same day, the 2005 film Anniyan, a blockbuster hit and rereleased in Telugu as Aparichithudu, will again be released in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
Ajith Kumar’s Mankatha also returned to the theatres after 13 years in May. The 2017 Kannada movie Anjani Putra, featuring late actor Puneeth Rajkumar, is also set for a rerelease, as per reports.
Latching on to the flavour even the producer of another of Vijay's movies is taking his movie to the silver screen again. “Get ready, Vijay fans! We have an exciting announcement that is sure to get your hearts racing!” producer and distributor Karan Ayngaran wrote, adding the 2009 movie Villu is slated for a rerelease in theatres on June 21 on the eve of Thalapathy Vijay’s 50th birthday.
PVR Inox executive director Sanjeev Kumar Bijli told a publication recently that the multiplex chain always believed that there is an audience beyond traditional movie screenings. This, Biji believes, encourages them to relaunch old hits, as well as experiment with live matches and big events like the Ayodhya Ram Mandir inauguration.
India would be done with voting by June 1 and cricketers would wrap up the IPL before that on May 27. But the big event for cricket-crazy Indians, the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, starts just after the Lok Sabha Election 2024 voting ends on June 1.
And Adarsh says it is “high time” distributors rerelease movies “especially in mass pockets” till the regular flow begins in the second half of 2024. Rereleasing successful films in cinemas also helps reintroduce those films to an all-new audience besides reigniting the nostalgia for many, he quips.
First Published: May 12, 2024 3:30 PM IST
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