Tamil Nadu: Fans damage Tirunelveli theatre during Beast trailer screening

The Tirunelveli theatre, Ram Cinemas, had issued free passes for the screening but many fans reportedly congregated at the complex without any valid pass. The theatre also failed to maintain Covid-19 guidelines owing to the huge surge in crowd, said sources.

Tiruppur Subramaniam, the president of Tamil Nadu Theatre Owners Association, expressed his displeasure over the incident and urged theatre owners to stop screening trailers and teasers of movies featuring big film stars.

“The free pass is making people from across the town gather at one place at a time. If something goes wrong, then the theatre owner will be held responsible. I don’t know how many of you know this, when Inaindha Kaigal got released in Shanthi theatre, two people were killed in the stampede. The theatre license was immediately cancelled… the theatre owner was held responsible. They toiled so hard to get back the license,” Subramaniam said in a voice message shared widely on social media.

Subramaniam said if trailers are screened inside a theatre complex, chances are that 2,000 people will gather in a place that can accommodate a maximum of 800 people.

“For a minute’s trailer, theatre owners are taking a risk by allowing so many people to gather in one place. If they say they are doing it for the excitement of the fans, then they need to pay the price if something goes wrong as well,” he told indianexpress.com.

However, owners of several theatres that screened the Beast trailer said that no decision should be made based on just one incident.

“The theatre owners should be taking the responsibility while screening a trailer or a teaser. It took us at least a week to arrange a screening like this. We know that there will be a large crowd and hence we decided to screen this on an LED screen near the parking lot. We had to coordinate with the local police, and the rasigar mandrams (fan clubs) to arrange the screening. The incident at Tirunelveli is an unfortunate one but it doesn’t happen on every occasion. We have been doing this for several years and we haven’t faced any such situation. If the large gatherings are cited as a reason to stop these screenings, then large gatherings at functions, political rallies and other festivals should also be restricted,” Rhevanth Charan, the executive director of Rohini Silver Screens in Koyambedu, said.

#Beast at #FansFortRohini

That’s the tweet. pic.twitter.com/x7BXyeg2Q7

— Rohini SilverScreens (@RohiniSilverScr) April 2, 2022

Helmed by director Nelson Dhilipkumar, Beast stars Vijay, Pooja Hegde, Selvaraghavan and Yogi Babu, among others. Anirudh Ravichander is the composer of the film and the project is bankrolled by Kalanithi Maran’s Sun Pictures.

The film is slated to hit the screens on April 13.