Producers, Multiplex owners fail to reach settlement

The month-long deadlock continues with film producers and plex owners playing hard ball at today's meeting which promised to iron out differences. Producers stuck to their demand of 50 per cent revenue share in the first week of release, something which the multiplex operators have found indisgestible.

UTV, one of the biggest producers, has thrashed out a plan to release its movies outside the national chain of multiplexes. Says UTV Motion Pictures CEO Siddharth Roy Kapur, "UTV will proceed to start releasing its big and small movies in single-screen theatres and non-national chain multiplexes nationwide from July onwards. Dates of release of the slate would be announced in due course of time." 8X10 Tasveer was the only big-budget Hindi movie that found way into the multiplexes after 4 April, the day film producers froze fresh content.