Rana Daggubati says India’s low screen count is triggered by rising real estate cost

Actor Rana Daggubati, who is known for ‘Arrambam’, ‘Baahubali: The Beginning’, ‘Baby’, ‘Housefull 4’ and others, has shared his insights on the Indian entertainment industry’s eternal problem of a diminishing screen count.Rana spoke with IANS ahead of the release of ‘All We Imagine as Light’ which won the Grand Prix at the 77th Cannes Film Festival.

Rana, who is presenting the film to the audience across the country, told IANS, “India is definitely very very underscreened. In terms of the number of screens it has, 14, 000 is a very large number. India has only about 6000-8000 working screens, the rest are all diminishing in many ways. Out of which, a large part of it is in Andhra and Telangana, the areas that I live in.

He further mentioned, “But no, we just feel like it can be much more. Screens for different kinds of people, and the number of people that are around”.

He then pointed toward the axel that drives the problem of screen count: India’s real estate market.

The actor told IANS, “It would solve that problem but India’s real estate is not as cheap as the rest of the world. We have less land, and many people unlike the USA or China which have much more land mass than us. We can build many more things. So that would change. But it’s like a chicken and egg. Look at the cinemas now. Every festival we are over full”.

“And we feel like there is no space for new films. But the rest of the year as exhibitors. We just sit idle because there is no film. It’s that trick that we are falling in, I just feel like. Unless exhibitors also know that there is more cinema that they can play, different types of audience that they can reach out to, different types of marketing techniques, that they can start exploring”, he added.

‘All We Imagine as Light’ is set to arrive in cinemas in India on November 22.

November 18 – 24 OTT releases: Rana Daggubati’s Talk Show, Nayanthara’s Documentary

This week, several new movies and web series are set to release on various OTT platforms. After the disappointing performance of last week’s releases, “Kanguva” and “Matka”, audiences are eagerly waiting for fresh content.

On the silver screen, movies include “Mechanic Rocky,” “Roti Kapada Romance,” “Zebra,” and “KCR.”.

This week, the OTT platforms are coming with an exciting lineup of 34 new movies and web series. Expected in the Telugu version are “Kishkinda Kandam” and Nayanthara’s documentary “Beyond the Fairy Tale”. Rana Daggubati’s talk show is also a part of it, apart from quite a few Hindi and English movies and web series.

Here is the complete list of releases on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hotstar, and Apple TV+ for you to plan your weekend binge-watching session:

Netflix:

“Nayanthara: Beyond the Fairy Tale” (documentary) – November 18
“Wonderous” season 2 (English series) – November 18
“Zombieverse” season 2 (Korean series) – November 19
“See Her Again” (Cantonese series) – November 20
“Adoration” (Italian series) – November 20

Amazon Prime:

“Campus Beats” season 4 (Hindi series) – November 20
“Vaak Girlfriends” (Hindi series) – November 22
“Pimpinero” (Spanish movie) – November 22

Hotstar:

Kishkinda Kandam” (Telugu-dubbed movie) – November 19
“Interior China Town” (English series) – November 19
“Alien: Romulus” (English movie) – November 21

Apple TV+:

“Blitz” (English movie) – November 22

Other Releases:

“The Rana Daggubati Show” (Telugu talk show) – Nov 23
“Manorama Max Tekku Vadhakku” (Malayalam movie)-Nov 19
“Book My Show From Darkness” (Swedish movie)-Nov 22
“The Girl in the Trunk” (English movie)-Nov 22
“The Night My Dad Saved Christmas” (Spanish movie)-Nov 22
“Lionsgate Play Greedy People” (English movie)- Nov 22