With India recording 26,291 COVID cases yesterday – its highest ever single-day numbers in 2021 and the trend of cases rising upwards since the past few weeks, the cinema capital of India – Mumbai, has been forced to reduce the theater capacity down to 50% allowance, just 6 weeks after opening all theaters at full capacity. This harsh COVID remainder will definitely affect the movies which were expected to release this month, especially the upcoming Bollywood action crime blockbuster ‘Mumbai Saga’.
With Mumbai being the major market for Bollywood films and other hit regional films with or without Hindi dubbing, the sudden reduction in occupancy will harshly affect the Box Office collection numbers for the coming weeks (months even, depending on how long this 50% occupancy goes). Of course, movies such as Vikrant Massey’s Switchh, Rana Daggubati’s Haathi Mere Saathi and Parineeti Chopra’s Saina among many others which will release this month, will all be affected by this Mumbai municipal announcement but the Emraan Hashmi – John Abraham action thriller will be the most affected one among them all.
With impressive marketing campaigns, a brilliant multistar cast and (presumably) action-packed script, ‘Mumbai Saga’ opening to only 50% capacity is going to rob the film of its much deserved early weekend profits. The 80s and 90s set film will literally have to work twice as hard to keep audiences interested and we wouldn’t be surprised if the film’s production company took the movie off the market and waited out this COVID crisis before releasing it later, in multiple fully-packed theaters. SInce this announcement is fairly recent, we will have to wait and see what the production house will do.
Based on multiple true stories, this film follows the rise of Mumbai as the cultural capital of India as mills shut down and malls make way all around the city. Sanjay Gupta, Vaibhav Vishal and Robin Bhatt all had a hand in scripting ‘Mumbai Saga’, while Sanjay directed this T-Series produced action crime film.
‘Mumbai Saga’ is expected to release in theaters in 3 days, on 16th March 2021.
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