80% tickets for Baahubali booked in advance

BENGALURU:The highly anticipated, lavishly mounted multilingual film Baahubali seems to be breaking records even before its release. Appealing to both multiplex as well as single-screen audience, the film is being released in 1,500 screens across India - rare even for the biggest Bollywood releases - and is also being lapped up by multiplexes and single-screen theatres across south India.In Karnataka alone, the film will be shown at 200 screens on Friday.
Thomas D'Souza, head of programming for PVR Cinemas, said the film is the company's biggest release ever in the region. More than 80% of tickets for the first-day shows have already been booked. It will be shown at 300 out of 470 PVR screens across India. In the south, where Bengaluru and Hyderabad have a strong multiplex audience, 90% of screens have been reserved for this film, he added.
The multi-starrer by Telugu director SS Rajamouli has been made on a staggering Rs 160-crore budget, making it the most expensive Indian film ever made. It will be released in several languages, including Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi. A period spectacle set in the 8th century, the film is said to be a glitzy action-oriented drama enhanced with state-of-the-art special effects.
The film has also capitalized on social media buzz it has generated over the past few months. Mahavir Salapakka, a relationship manager with HSBC, said: "Over the past two years, they have released teasers about the film almost every month on social media creating high anticipation. Unfortunately, I will only get to watch the movie on Saturday as I am babysitting. But my wife will watch the movie on Friday with her friends and she better not tell me the plot!"
"I have lived in Bengaluru for more than three years now. This is the first regional movie I am going to watch. The visuals look amazing," said software engineer Rangel Fernandes.
VH Suresh, ex-vice president, Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce, said, "We are expecting a huge crowd at the over 200 theatres in Karnataka where the movie will be screened in three languages - Telugu, Hindi and Tamil. It is going to be bigger than a Rajnikanth-starrer. No big releases are lined up for this week because of Baahubali."
Not everyone is, however, equally enthused. Sumit Roy, who works for a finance startup, said: "I don't think I will watch this movie and if I do end up seeing it, I will probably fast forward it often. Such movies in India are never very gripping."