"Multiplexes cater to smaller audiences; the chains of cinema houses can offer a full package – food and a variety of genres of movies; plus if they are located in a mall, there is an added attraction of shopping,” Kamal Sidhwa Taraporevala told Parsiana on August 10, 2018. The third generation co-owner of Bombay’s iconic single-screen Regal Cinema was bemoaning the low footfalls at the South Bombay movie house. On July 26, Sidhwa Taraporevala had posted on Facebook: "Mission Impossible 6 at the Regal Cinema. Please patronize the Regal, one of the last single-screen cinemas left in Bombay!”
"The footfall is heartbreakingly low. It’s a 1,100-seater cinema, and we sometimes struggle to fill 150. We have advance bookings, but the sales drop are unimaginable,” Sidhwa Tarapore- vala told the mid-day (MD) of July 27. Lamenting that distributors have stopped giving enough movies to single-screen cinemas as they prefer multiplexes, she said that "In the 1990s, we used to run full houses. And now, we see 100-200 people on good days... I sent that (Facebook) message out to friends who prefer to watch English movies.”
Regal Cinema: heartbreakingly low footfalls Photo: Farrokh Jijina
Gandhi had run for "months and months” and Enter the dragon for 13 months at the theater, Sidhwa Taraporevala recalled. "The business is not generating enough money for us to take on the extra expenditure of redoing it into something else, for instance a multiplex... There is also the issue that the government won’t allow us to convert it for any other business (say a restaurant). If it’s a cinema, it has to be used as a cinema. This is why so many single screens are lying vacant,” she lamented. "Even at this point, we are hopeful. We haven’t considered selling out yet,” Sidhwa Taraporevala told the MD, adding that "anything we do to keep it running has to be done privately, including generating the funds.”
Director in the company that runs Regal Cinema, Globe Theatres Private Limited, Saleem Ahmadullah echoed Sidhwa Taraporevala’s views: "Metro Cinema was able to convert to a multiplex as they had a very large foyer, allowing the building of smaller theaters within it... we do not.”
Built 1933 by Sidhwa Taraporevala’s grandfather Framji Sidhwa, the Regal building was designed by architect Charles Stevens, son of the legendary 19th century architect F.W. Stevens who designed many iconic buildings in Bombay, including the Victoria Terminus and the Municipal Corporation. With extensive mirror-work in the interiors designed by a Czech artist Karl Schara, the main auditorium has a motif of sunrays in pale orange and jade green. Built in reinforced cement concrete (RCC) and fully air conditioned, the elevator was a major innovation for its time, notes the theater’s website.
With nearby Eros Cinema having downed its shutters many months ago, few successful single screen movie houses remain in the city. Globe also owns the Capitol Cinema opposite Victoria Terminus. That single screen cinema has been forlorn for the last several years. Deepak Cinema has become a venue for art films while Liberty hosts film festivals; a few like Alfred and Imperial screen B-grade movies. Edward Talkies continues to screen films. Parsi-owned Victory in Poona however has defied the odds and held its own (see "A victorious showing,” Parsiana, August 21, 2018).