Time Pass 2 marks victory for Marathi cinema on Maharashtra Day

Less than a month since the controversy and climbdown by the Maharashtra government over its decision to make one screen mandatory for Marathi films in multiplexes during prime time, Marathi cinema and multiplex owners were on a warpath till late Thursday. This time, the reason was revenue sharing. While Bollywood gets 50% of share in revenue and Tamil and Telugu films are given 48%, Marathi film producers receive just 45%. After intense negotiations and some muscle flexing today's release will finally get revenue share on par with other regional films.

After talks with multiplex owners and makers of Time Pass 2 (TP2) broke down over demands of parity in revenue sharing, the film, releasing today, almost did not make it to multiplexes. “Effectively, it would've meant that on Maharashtra Day, Marathi cinema was being shown the door by multiplexes,” said TP2 director Ravi Jadhav, who has delivered four back-to-back superhits – Natarang, Balgandharva, Balak-Palak & Time Pass.

Jadhav had alleged step-motherly treatment by multiplexes for Marathi films. Expressing happiness over the multiplex owners coming around, he told dna, “Why should we have to beg for what is right?” Many like film critic Amit Bhandari agreed with Jadhav. “This is not about TP2. There should be a uniform rule for Marathi films across the board.”

Essel Vision Productions Ltd, which has produced TP2, too felt multiplexes led by PVR were being adamant. “We understand that there are super niche small films like our forthcoming Killa and Katyar Kaljat Ghusli which we do for a reason. We won't ask such terms for those films. But for a lavishly mounted big-budget film like TP2 which promises packed houses, multiplexes can't have the same rules,” underlined CEO Nitin Keni.

He said they had offered the multiplexes several options. “We said if not 50% they could make it 48%. We then said they could give us 48% in the first week and then we could work out a lesser share for later weeks. But they refused to consider any of these. That's when the talks collapsed.”

Incidentally, dna found that the response for Gabbar is Back was not so good and tickets were available even for the first-day-first-show on Friday. Comparatively, TP2 has housefull bookings across single screens in Mumbai, Pune, Nashik, Aurangabad, Nagpur and Kolhapur until Sunday.

This politically hot issue had expectedly set the cat among the proverbial pigeons of Maharashtra's regional politics, with the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena and the Shiv Sena jumping on the bandwagon.

“Dagdu naahi tar mag Gabbar hee naahi (If we don't have Dagdu – the central character's name in TP and TP2 – we won't allow Gabbar too),” Ameya Khopkar of Maharashtra NavNirman Chitrapat Karmachari Sena had said.

“Rajsaheb will talk to the multiplex owners and see, otherwise we will have to change our tone.” Not surprisingly, Aadesh Bandekar too has said that the Sena won’t allow injustice against Marathi films.

Understandably both parties are claiming credit for the breakthrough with TP2.

Even as Maharashtra's culture minister Vinod Tawde began making calls to intervene, many say it was the realisation of how this could spiral politically that led the multiplexes to capitulate.

Repeated attempts to reach PVR Group president, Kamal Gyanchandani, who was leading talks for the multiplexes, drew a blank.