Theatre owners ask pay up from Vijay for Sura flop

Tamil Nadu theatre owners and distributors have convened an emergency meeting on May 22 in Chennai and unanimously decided to demand Kollywood's Ilayathalapathi Vijay to refund a portion of the money they put up for his 50th film Sura, which bombed at the box office.

Tamil Nadu Theatre Owners' Association secretary Rohini Paneerselvam said: "We want him to refund at least 40% of the money we put up as minimum guarantee (MG). We had paid a huge amount banking on Vijay's reputation and the hype surrounding his 50th film, but collections were not good."

The association will formally meet Vijay on Wednesday with its primary agenda of asking him to follow the footsteps of Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan and compensate them. Notably, Rajjnikanth refunded the money to theatre owners when his Baaba and Kuselan bombed, while Kamal set right the losses incurred over Hey Ram and Mumbai Express.

Paneerselvam said that nearly 240 theatres in the state took Sura at highly competitive rates with 195 of them paying close to Rs. 40 crore as MG. "If the film had collected Rs. 5 lakh in each theatre in the first few days, it would have been comfortable for all. However, it failed to fetch beyond Rs 2.5 lakh even after a week. Theatre owners have no choice but to pay up the MG and suffer losses," said a theatre owner.