Leo starring actor Vijay in the lead had a phenomenal opening weekend at the box-office in Tamil Nadu (TN) yet theater owners in TN seem to be grossly diasppointed with the movie. We had previously reported that major TN exhibitors had fought till the last minute to bring down the high distributor share that was demanded for Leo. This included producers of Vijay's next movie (Thalapathy 68), who also run a popular theater chain in Chennai named AGS Cinemas.

Despite their efforts, theaters in Tamil Nadu i.e. the single screens were exhibiting Leo with a high distributor share of upto 80%, taking only 20% for them. This was in contrast to the multiplex standards, that were exhibiting Leo with only a 60% distribution share. Leo took a big opening in Tamil Nadu. The Dussehra holiday season along along with state government's permission of 5 shows per day enabled Leo to have a strong hold in theaters for 6 days. 

"As far as Leo is concerned, all types of theater owners have paid up maximum (distributor) percentage. They (the makers) have grabbed it to that level. Today Leo is doing big business in theaters and OTT. No matter the scale of the business, the theater owners have been crushed. We (theater owners) are deeply disappointed by this. But we didn't have any choice. There were no other films. We had no option but to screen this film (Leo)...

 

..If this situation (of paying up high distributor share) continues, theaters will be left with no choice but to close down. In North India, there is no concept of single screens these days. Tamil Nadu has single screens. If these single screens need to survive, then taking 75%, 80% distributor share will kill them in small towns and cities. Already its a dying business there...

 

What was a standard 60% distributor share, Leo has now taken it to 80%. From next film these same people will raise it to 85%. Why give us any percentage in that case? they can take the whole share. How will we run our theater business then? So according to us, Leo has deeply disappointed us" - Tirupur Subramaniam, film distributor and head of Tamil Nadu Theatre Owner And Multiplex Association. 

 

However with screenings allowed only between 9:00 AM - 1:30 AM and Leo's runtime of 2 hours and 43 minutes, even multiplexes like PVR-INOX had to cut down on the interval time from 22 minutes to 10 minutes to accommodate 5 shows per day. This inturn affected the food and beverage (F&B) business drastically, which is a prominent source of income for theaters everywhere. At the end of week 1 of Leo's run, theaters - both single screens and multiplexes are left at the mercy of the film's run into week 2 and further.

This means that a lot depends on Leo's box-office performance in the upcoming weeks, and the movie's longevity in theaters. This has left single screen owners in Tamil Nadu already lamenting over 'the greed' of 7 Screen Studios producer Lalith Kumar who they feel 'cornered' them into buying Leo for a high distributor share. At the moment, they are voicing out concerns over how are they to see profits or breakeven when they are only getting an ant's share of Leo's business, along with usual business (F&B) being affected in the crucial first week.