The End! City’s Platinum Theatre Shuts Down for Good

The End! City’s Platinum Theatre Shuts Down for Good

Mangaluru: Not only it’s “The End” for the movies screened, but also “The End” for City’s “Platinum Theatre” which stopped screening movies beginning of 2017. I still remember my college days at St Aloysius, when we used to bunk chemistry or physics classes, and head on to Platinum Theatre on Falnir Road, to watch Malyalam movies with “A” ratings ??-you know what I mean- those were our adolescent days?. Now recently with the closing of Platinum Theatre, only a few single screen theatres are left in the city namely- Jyothi Talkies, New Chitra Talkies, Ramakanthi Talkies, Balaji Talkies, New Central Talkies, Prabhath and Sujatha Talkies- the first single screen theatre to close was Amrith theatre at Pandeshwara five years ago.

The reason for a low audience and less revenue is due to the quite a few multiplex movie theatres that have sprung up in town. Sadly Platinum stopped screening just when the state government was all set to popularize the concept of Janata Chitramandira. Platinum theatre began 40 years ago and screened a good number of movies in Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam- and the last movie to be screened here was Vishal-starrer ‘Kaththi Sandai,’ a Tamil flick which ringed in a decent collection. With three multiplexes namely PVR Cinemas at Forum Fiza Mall at Pandeshwar, Cinepolis at City Centre Mall on K S Rao Road; and Big Cinemas at Bharat Mall, near KSRTC Bus-stand-Bejai, movie lovers prefer multiplex theatres rather than single screen theatres.

Sources reveal that with multiplexes giving undue preference to movies in other languages and single screens slowly being relegated to pages of history, the Karnataka Chalanachitra Akademi came out with the Janata Chitramandira concept to ensure more screening of Kannada films. Speaking to Team Mangalorean, Ashok Kumar, the film exhibitor who used to run the Platinum theatre on a contract basis said, “It had become inevitable to stop screening due to a yawning gap between the maintenance cost and the revenue. Since I was incurring loss for the last three years, I decided not to renew the exhibition licence that was due on January 1, 2017.”

“I attribute the loss to multiplexes that have slashed fares that match with that of our single screen theatres. It is obvious for movie-goers to opt for swanky screens instead of single screen theatres. The whopping maintenance cost to run this theatre includes monthly electricity bills that comes up to Rs 30,000 and Rs 35,000, paying salaries of workers, getting proper help is a big headache, and we have to pay more to hire employees through manpower services, repair and maintenance, generators, rent to be paid to the theatre owner and other miscellaneous expenditures.” added Kumar.

Kumar said except for Rajinikanth starrer ‘Sivaji’, he cannot rate any movies that run beyond two weeks. Vijay starrer ‘Kaththi’ was released in 2014. Suriya-starrer ‘Singham’ – part I and II – were also screened here. The theatre had a seating capacity of 720 including 330 balcony seats, 390 on the ground (first class) and 60 front seats, known as the ‘Gandhi class’. Many movie buffs who liked Platinum Theatre will surely miss it!