Gautam Dutta, Co-CEO, PVR INOX, says trailers are the most "potent marketing material to galvanise footfalls" and with their latest 'trailer screening show' initiative, the company aims to give tentpole films a bigger opening and content driven stories a chance to thrive.

To generate buzz around a movie and draw audiences to theatres, PVR INOX has introduced the world’s first 30-minute trailer screening show at just one rupee. "We never get 20 hits in a row. Some movies perform, some don’t. This has been happening since time immemorial. We believe good marketing will give a movie a great opening... And the trailer is the most potent marketing material to galvanise footfalls towards the movie,” Dutta told PTI in a virtual interview. The 30-minute trailer show screening features over ten handpicked trailers of the upcoming Hindi, Hollywood and regional movies. Screenings are being organised across select PVR and INOX multiplexes in the country.

Dutta said their aim is to sensitise audiences and create excitement for watching a movie in a cinema hall.

"This initiative focuses on two things -- give bigger openings to films and create a market for the mid-level films that have great stories. So, good movies with great trailers will gain a lot, big movies will have bigger openings with this initiative,” he added.

According to Dutta, 18 to 20 films release per week across all languages in India, of which roughly 12 to 14 movies never get to play their trailers, because the multiplexes can only accommodate showing three or four trailers with every screening of the movie.

"There are regional, Hollywood, Bollywood movies releasing, so there are a lot of films that never get to screen (trailers) on the big screen. Now with this initiative, we can show consumers, 12 to 14 trailers, in about 30 minutes.

The idea is to package content from across the globe into an eclectic mix of regional, Hollywood and Bollywood films.

"We want to make a masala mix of regional, Hollywood and Bollywood. Also, we will look at that audience, the language, what kind of content they consume, and we will put together an eclectic mix of trailers, which will be showcased to consumers.” As per the company, about 35,000 people who were primarily in the vicinity of the cinema halls, walked into 360 PVR and INOX cinemas over a period of three days, starting from April 7, to watch trailers of different movies.

The trailers shown were of Ranbir Kapoor-Shraddha Kapoor-starrer “Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar”, Keanu Reeves's “John Wick”, Ajay Devgn-fronted “Bholaa”, Mani Ratnam's “Ponniyin Selvan: II”, and Shah Rukh Khan-led “Jawan”, among others.

"We are seeing a good mix of impulse audiences as well as audiences who are planning to watch these shows in advance... We hope to get to about 50 per cent occupancy levels during the weekend and about 40 per cent occupancy levels during the weekdays," he added.

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