Even as film buffs from this region were unwilling to wait till February 7 and travelled to Bangalore and the border towns of Kerala to watch Vishwaroopam , theatre owners in Coimbatore were in for a surprise.
On Tuesday morning, they found thousands of tickets being booked online in a span of just six hours.
Bookings began at the stroke of 12.01 a.m. on Tuesday.
The release of the movie, originally scheduled for the last week of January, faced trouble, following protests by Muslim organisations that the contents showed their people in a bad light.
After the State had revoked the ban on Sunday afternoon, it was announced that the movie would be released on February 7 and plans opened for reservations at the stroke of 12 on Monday night.
A theatre owner said the response was so overwhelming that more than 4,000 tickets were sold by Tuesday morning.
Multiplexes are planning to show the movie on more screens for at least one week or 10 days to cater to the heavy rush.
Response
V. Senthilkumar, Chief Operating Officer of Central Theatres said the enormous response to Vishwaroopam was second only to Avatar .
R. Hariprasad, manager of Cosmo Village Pictures said the original release plan held good even now because of the tremendous response and the movie will hit the screens on Thursday morning in over 60 centres in Coimbatore district.
When Vijay starrer Thuppaki was released, multiplexes ran 71 shows per week and when the Vishwaroopam release was planned, the original schedule of the multiplexes was to have a minimum of 90 shows per week with at least 12 to 16 shows per day by shuffling the movie on different screens.
After assessing the demand over the next 36 to 48 hours, multiplexes would take a call on shuffling screens and increase the number of shows, a spokesperson for SPI Cinemas in Chennai told The Hindu over phone.
Shows in theatres with one or two screens have been sold out till Sunday. Already, bookings have commenced for the shows beyond Monday.
Six shows
In fact theatres with just one, two or three screens are planning for six shows per day in order to cater to the rush.
On Tuesday, theatre booking counters witnessed big queues.
The staff struggled to clear the queue because by the time, the showtime was chosen and the numbers of seats were entered, the seats were already sold online.
