PVR hopes slashed popcorn prices ahead of Barbie, Oppenheimer release will boost audience numbers

For last few years, theatre audiences had started feeling alienated owing to exorbitant food and beverage (F&B) prices costing upwards of Rs 450 for a tub of cheese popcorn while 600-ml soft drinks would cost Rs 360 at multiplex chains operated by PVR, Inox, Cinepolis, etc. But by recently slashing prices, India’s largest multiplex chain PVR Inox hopes to better leverage the hype that two mega releases Barbie and Oppenheimer have created in the last one month. 

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie—based on the iconic doll created by Ruth Handler in 1959—is poised to make her grand debut into the world of cinema. The movie stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling. Releasing on July 21, the movie will go up against filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, starring Cillian Murphy in the lead.

The film exhibitor introduced food combos starting from Rs 99 from Monday to Thursday between 9 am and 6 pm, while on weekends it has offered bottomless popcorn with “unlimited refills” and “bottomless Pepsi”, the company said. 

“Cinephiles who plan to watch films during the weekend can claim bottomless popcorn featuring unlimited tub refills, along with attractively priced Family Meal Combos, bringing down the food and beverages (F&B) spends by as much as 40 per cent,” PVR Inox had said.  

PVR’s Joint Managing Director Sanjeev Bijli told Business Today that theatres are already back with a bang and the price cut in F&B will help them get more eyeballs. “We’ve reduced the price for F&B through various promotions. It’s something that we wanted to do for a long time. We got feedback from our consumers and we reduced them. It’s only been about 3-4 days. Going to a cinema, going to the movies will be easy on the pocket for consumers and therefore I’m hoping that would encourage people to come out in more numbers from now on,” he said.

Bijli added that there are slightly more pre-sales for Oppenheimer as opposed to Barbie in India, “But I’ve heard there are a lot of people who want to watch both because they are both different genres. It’s a different audience altogether that’s why people would want to watch both. Mission Impossible 7 has led the appetite already, with every film there’s an audience that has come out that has stopped going to the cinema. Once you go and see a film it increases your appetite to go and watch other films.”

According to BookMyShow, advance sales of Oppenheimer tickets have crossed 300,000, while for Barbie it was 54,000 tickets. Around 90,000 tickets of Oppenheimer have been sold for day one across PVR, INOX and Cinepolis while for Barbie it is 16,000, according to experts.