Word-of-mouth can fill seats. But in Indian multiplexes, it cannot protect them from a studio juggernaut.
National Award-winning documentarian and filmmaker Vinod Kapri learned that lesson the hard way this week. His low-budget drama Pyre had pulled off a rare box-office climb, ballooning from a cautious rollout of 80 shows across 80 screens to more than 400 shows within four days on the back of glowing viewer reactions. Then came the cull. Over the course of 48 hours, theater owners swept the board clear, gutting more than 75 percent of the film's screenings nationwide and reducing its footprint to fewer than 100 shows. The culprit was unstated on marquee boards, but glaringly obvious inside the auditoriums: massive screen-locking for the high-profile release of Ramayana.
The math was brutal. Kapri mounted Pyre on a modest budget between ₹2 crore and ₹2.5 crore, taking his cameras into the austere heights of a remote Uttarakhand village. The film casts non-professional elderly locals to tell the quiet, heartbreaking story of Amma and Bubu, a couple who have spent 28 years waiting for their absent son. It is cinema stripped of vanity, relying on raw emotional heft rather than star wattage. Audiences responded, filling seats in an industry often cynical about rural narratives. Yet, when the tentpole arrived, exhibitors pulled the plug on Pyre anyway, even in halls where rival shows were running half-empty.
Kapri took to X to sound the alarm on what he characterized as institutional bullying by distribution networks. Theater owners and distributors, he revealed, were given strict instructions to clear schedules and run only one designated title across their properties.
"When Pyre was released, we went for a very limited release from the very beginning, around 80 shows across 80 screens," Kapri stated. "Thanks to your love, within three to four days, the film got 400 screens and more than 400 shows. However, in the last two days, at least 75 percent shows were cut. The number, which climbed above 400, has now dropped to fewer than 100 shows nationwide. We have been in touch with theatre owners and distributors, and they have informed us that they have been instructed to screen only one specific film in their theatres."
Kapri made it clear he harbors no grudge against big-budget spectacles securing expansive releases, but questioned why an industry supposedly celebrating diverse storytelling routinely starves independent work of basic survival oxygen. "You may have invested a large amount of money into your film, but we have poured our entire souls into ours," Kapri said in an appeal to exhibitors. "We too deserve a fair chance. Please, do not let this injustice happen."
Pressuring single-screen and multiplex chains to sign exclusionary block-booking contracts remains an open secret in trade distribution. When massive corporate backing dictates programming, exhibitors sacrifice sustained sleeper hits for guaranteed opening-weekend advance bookings. For Kapri's fragile, gut-punch portrait of Himalayan abandonment, the sudden eviction leaves its theatrical lifespan hanging by a thread, turning the remaining double-digit show count into a localized battle for footfalls.