Jitendra Kothari recalled affectionately in the early 1980s, when he took his family to the Mumbai Cinema in Queens, New York to watch popular Hindi movies on a single screen of the theater. “It’s our only social fun because there’s nowhere else to watch these movies,” said Kotari, who immigrated to the United States from India in 1970. “It’s like going back to India.” Before the theater, Kothari remembered some of his friends rented a hall or auditorium at the university in the 1970s, where they showed Hindi movies.
It’s a big leap from university auditorium to actual cinema screenings of Hindi movies, but fast forward 30 years, Indian cinemas haven’t changed much. Indian theaters remain independent, and the popular car shops have experienced many ups and downs in the business cycle. It began in the 1980s, and as VCR became more affordable, theater visitors turned to their favorite movies at home. “When we’re watching almost nothing, why spend money on movie tickets,” Kosari said. Soon after, the Mumbai Cinema in Queens went bankrupt.
Indian Indian cinemas opened again in the mid-1990s, perhaps a revival of South Asian immigrants coming to the United States. But there are still many problems with the business. “The combination of increased competition, labor issues and pirated DVDs can affect the business,” said Siva Gunasegaram, whose father owns Jackson Heights Cinema at Jackson Heights, Queens, Queens and New Jersey’s Mayfair Theatre.
Recently, some competition came from an unlikely company that landed on the U.S. coast in early 2009, allowing some Indian independent cinema owners to offer greater competition for their own businesses: Reliance Mediaworks Ltd’s large cinemas, which now have operations in a number of countries including India, Malaysia, Malaysia, Malay, the United States and the United States.
The Mayfair Theatre, New Jersey, opened in 2008, and three screens play a combination of Tamil, TV and Hindi movies. “A few months after we opened, the big cinema opened several blocks,” Gunasegaram said.
Reliance Mediaworks CEO Anil Arjun said the company hopes to use the estimated 3 million Indians in the United States who speak Indian languages, including Hindi, Tamil and Telegu. “We noticed that Indian films have an important market in the United States,” Arjun said. “But what is missing is a proper distribution mechanism that can deliver products to customers and give them a real consumer experience in entertainment.”
Reliance Mediaworks has taken over several existing theaters in the United States, with 30% of which have been aired in Indian movies. In addition to sticking the brand name to their brand, the company has also renovated the theater and changed the acoustic system in an attempt to provide consumers with a better “look, feel and experience” compared to some couples Indian cinemas there. “We not only bring excellent experience and atmosphere to the theater, but also reporting systems, e-ticketing, better quality standards and training to train staff,” he said.
Arjun said that this could be even higher as Indian films penetrate only 8% of the global box office. Reliance Mediaworks’ website claims that the large cinemas “have 20-35% of box office collections in Hindi, and over 70% of Tamil and Telegu box office collections from the United States”.
In some ways, Reliance’s strategy works. Rimple Shah, who watched Hindi movies at Big Cinemas in Edison, New Jersey, said things have changed since the company took over the theater about a year ago. “Before (the big cinema took over it), it was really clumsy and a little stinky. Now they make the hall and ticket booth area much better,” she said. However, whether this changes the choice of the cinemas remains to be seen, especially since few theaters show Indian movies. “I went to the big cinema because it was closest to my home,” Kunal Mehta said. “The next closest theater is 10 miles (16 kilometers).
Since Indian theaters are an unorganized industry, dispersed throughout the United States, Reliance Mediaworks sees an opportunity to create an independent branded movie chain.
For Bala Murali, who owns a single-screen theater in Chicago called Sathyam, the five-screen theater that Big Cinemas opened throughout the town has not had much impact on his business, which only shows Tamil, Telegu and Malayalam movies. There is enough distance between the two theaters – a 40-minute drive between each theater to serve various Indian communities in these areas. Murali also upgraded his cinema with a top-notch audio system and serves Indian snacks like a large cinema. “But if they settle here for a long time, it could be a problem with small theaters like us because they will control the market,” he said. In addition, Murali is the publisher of American South Indian films. Now, Reliance is starting a distribution business. “They started to step onto my territory,” Murari said. From his theater perspective, he said that if the game heats up, he could always start showing Hollywood movies, or get rid of the theater’s lease.
Bhavesh Patel’s family, who works with family members who depend on opening large cinemas in Chicago, said the company brings professionalism to the industry. He said at the Chicago location in Chicago, he said: “Our customers saw the faces of South Asia. Some people might be scared to go to Salwar-Kameez to watch American movies. But that’s not the case here.”
Working with locals benefits large cinemas. “We bring experience from programming, offers, product streaming, marketing promotions and online marketing strategies, systems, operations expertise, negotiations. The advantage of our partners is that they understand the community very well. This can help us determine pricing and programming.”
Arjun said Reliance introduced “the history behind the original theater, audience and community” and then decided how the film was mixed.
In addition, the nearby Indians were concentrated, and the proximity to the theater seemed to help Molakapalli maintain its clients. “Even with big cinemas, I can compete with them because of my position,” he said.
Molakapalli also owns a theater in Dallas, Texas, which has no competition yet. It is too early to see what might happen when a large cinema moves there now. Reliance sees it as a possible opportunity.
The large cinema’s film portfolio in theaters, depending on the nearby companies, which helps the company as a whole. “We have limited reliance on product traffic,” Arjun said. “When the strike of all Hindi movies on Bollywood last year, it had a big impact in India. But the impact in the United States is very limited because we have a lot of Hollywood movies, as well as Tamil and TV movies.” In stark contrast, Eagle Cinemas, located in Jackson Heights, Queens, showed only the first Hindi movies when Bollywood filmmakers went on a seven-week strike last year and were forced to go bankrupt.
As of now, independent theater owners in the United States have different feelings about the existence of large cinemas. What it does, Arjun said, is to improve the consumer experience of watching Indian movies. “I don’t think the market is even open to something big enough to say we are turning to market share,” he said. In fact, he added that the presence of large cinemas in the United States helped independent theaters. “We show that more Indian movies are being released in the US, which means every distributor is looking at a wider distribution, so product streams are happening,” Arjun said.
He would be happy to work with independent owners if the opportunity is right. As of now, the Grand Cinema is located in 24 American cities in states including New York, New Jersey, California, Kansas City, and Chicago, to name just a few. Regarding the company’s future goals, Arjun said it could go deeper into California and open in Florida. He added: “The benefit of the US is that the Indian market is concentrated in concentration, and it is not widely spread. So you can zero in specific theaters and communities.”
Several independent Indian Lady Theater has been resold many times because as entrepreneurs they think they can develop the theater into a successful business. Many of them started the business due to their passion for films. As for Reliance Mediaworks, Arjun said: “For me personally, we have an Indian company, an Indian brand, and we have a lot of pride in the United States.”
