Footfalls are 20% lower, but India seeing fastest recovery: Cinepolis India

Footfalls at Cinepolis are about 20 per cent lower than pre-pandemic levels more than nine months after opening to full occupancy, but India has seen the fastest recovery compared to the 19 countries the Mexican multiplex chain operates in, according to India CEO Devang Sampat. 

Cinepolis, the fourth largest film exhibitor in the country after PVR Cinemas, INOX Leisure and Carnival Cinemas, has more than 400 screens across 22 cities. 

“Our footfalls are 20 per cent down compared to pre-pandemic levels, but looking at the global behaviour, India has recovered the fastest compared to the 19 countries Cinepolis operates in,” he told Business Today.  But the good news is that the multiplex chain released 1,000 titles in the calendar year so far, which is on par with the pre-pandemic level of 2019, he added.  

Theatres began reopening to full capacity after the Omicron wave starting around February-end. 

“So, the content flow is there. The pandemic has definitely changed the movie-going behaviour of the audience. But the recent quarter has also seen the quality of content improving,” he said, referring to films such as Drishyam 2 and Kantara. He claims their own research during the pandemic showed full recovery in footfalls in 2023 and 2024, with the results for India currently being better than what was projected.  

Listed firms PVR and INOX have seen footfalls of 83.8 million and 41 million, respectively, during the nine-month period from January to September 2022. That puts their footfalls at about 68.4 per cent and 75.6 per cent, respectively, of the same period in 2019.  

Cinepolis, which is not listed in India, is the only exhibitor in the country with an international backing. The India arm accounts for a fraction of its Mexican parent’s 6,700 screens worldwide. It had to tweak its global ‘megaplex’ strategy for a diverse market like India. While the chain globally has an average of 10 screens at each multiplex, it has six here. It had acquired all 83 screens of Fun Cinemas from the Essel Group in early-2015, reportedly for an enterprise value of Rs 550 crore. 

Sampat also says they’ve witnessed a major change in footfalls after the exclusivity window for theatrical films to release on OTTs has been increased again to eight weeks from four weeks during the pandemic. In fact, he says, even for OTT players it makes marketing sense for films to first come to the theatres. A producer has different sources of revenue today in the form of theatrical collections, OTTs and satellite rights, he adds.  

“Now, people don’t come for a Salman Khan or a Sharukh Khan. They also look at who’s directing the film, who the action director is, how the visual effects are. That I would say is because of OTTs. The Kannada sleeper-hit Kantara was not driven by star power, but by story and that appreciation for the story is thanks to OTT where people started consuming more content,” he said. 

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