Tamil films hit by Mumbai terror attacks

Chennai, Dec 9 (PTI) The recent terror attacks in the financial capital of India have affected the Tamil film industry with a two-third drop in collections in the cinema houses in Mumbai screening Tamil films.

"The Mumbai strikes had a direct impact on the Tamil film
industry as the collection in the cinema houses in Mumbai
screening Tamil films reported a two-third drop in the
collections," South Indian Film Chamber of Commerce president
K Rajagopal told PTI.

"Some films, which were ready for release in Mumbai,
could not be released as the cinema houses there were yet to
recover from the shock," he said.

Film Federation of India Vice-President L Suresh said,
"The collections during the four days when the incident
happened has got affected largely. Many of the people were
glued to their TV sets and our collections were drastically
hit."

"Fortunately, none of our (Tamil) film crew was present
in Mumbai during the attack or it would have been worse. We
are expecting some more movies to be released this year and
also during Pongal next month which would provide some relief
to us," he added.

However, the attacks have not way affected the Bollywood
film industry and none are looking at shifting to Chennai for
production, which houses the second largest number of studios
in the country, Rajagopal, who is also a leading producer of
Tamil films, said.

"...Mumbai always has its charm with exotic locations and
I don't think they would come to Chennai for shooting purposes
due to the attack," he said.

AVM Film Studios managing partner M Balasubramanian said,
"People are not leaving Mumbai for shooting following the
terror attacks."

"I don't think it is correct to say people are leaving
Mumbai and going to other places for shooting films. Nothing
is going to happen because of the terror strike to the
industry. If they have Chennai or (any where) in Tamil Nadu as
their schedule for shooting location, they might come or they
may even go to Hyderabad to shoot," he said.

Giving some statistics on the production of movies,
Suresh said, "Around 132 movies were shot last year and this
year we are expecting it to be over 150 as there were quite a
few small budget films."

In a bid to cut the production cost, Tamil Nadu
government has announced that it would subsidise low budget
films being produced here. PTI VIJ
NIK
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