I woke up fresh last Sunday morning and as usual started browsing some Telugu movie websites on my laptop. I saw the USA collections of a new Telugu movie that released last week and was happy to see the figures in there because a hit movie brings cheers for everyone, may it be Telugu film Industry, Exhibitors or the audience. Living in a small town like Harrisburg i could not wait for couple of weeks to watch this movie. So, i decided to go to Virginia to watch this movie which is about two hours drive from here.
The same day we drove down to Worldgate Theaters at Herndon, VA for the 4:20 PM show. When purchasing the tickets i was asked to pay $14 per ticket. For a movement i wondered if the white man in the counter heard the movie name right. I repeated the movie name and he repeated the price. I started to think I did not come to watch the premier show to pay couple of bucks extra. I did not come to watch a high budget movie like Rajni Kanth-Shankar Shivaji. I did not come to watch multi starrer movie. In fact the hero in this movie is a lead comedian and there is no big star cast in this movie. The promos boast that this movie is made on a very low budget. Then why was i taxed to pay $14/ticket? I didn't want to argue with him at the counter regarding the ticket price because he is just an employee. I looked around for someone who can answer my question as why should i pay $14 for watching this movie and i find no one. I could not afford to go back without watching because i drove long way and had been dreaming to watch this movie the whole day. So, i purchased the tickets and stood next to the counter to see other people's reaction purchasing tickets. In my 10 min observation i saw almost all feeling the pain when buying the tickets but suppressed their feelings just like me. Again today morning i see the posting that the same movie collected 1 crore of Indian Rupees In USA screenings, but everyone who watched this movie may have had their share of pain in this collection. I would feel happy if the figures about a movie collection say how many people watched it rather than how much it collected.
If watching Telugu movies in theaters become Luxury, people resort to alternate ways like watching pirated version online and once he is used to it he continues doing it. So, whoever are fixing the high ticket prices and scaring people away from theaters are directly encouraging piracy. Please do not let this happen that lowers the standard of Telugu films. Unlike back in India, there are no rules to set ticket prices in USA, please do not take advantage on this.
This is not a hate article on the distributors or exhibitors of this film. In fact I really appreciate all the hard work done by them that makes watching Telugu movies so easy for all of us. Apart from the ticket price I enjoyed every minute watching the movie.
Chaitanya Manne
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The views expressed in the article are the author's and not of greatandhra.com.
