Telugu exhibitors’ revenue share demand claims Jetlee as first victim, Ram Charan’s Peddi to suffer too

What the CEO said

The issue came up at the Jetlee success meet held in Hyderabad on Saturday, where Mythri CEO Cherry spoke what happened it with Jetlee, and how it’ll pan out for Peddi. He confirmed that negotiations between producers and exhibitors had continued until late on the night of April 30 and ended without agreement, which meant the film missed its May Day audience entirely.

Also Read: Ram Charan’s Peddi locks June 4 release hours after Mythri’s Jetlee boycott statement

“It is true that there are differences of opinion between producers and exhibitors. This has been happening for a long time. The theatre owners are demanding that films be screened on a percentage basis even on single screens. The producers have said that it will be difficult for us to do so,” he said.

He acknowledged that the May Day audience for Jetlee had paid the price for the failed talks and said an exception should have been made for the holiday. He confirmed that some theatres had since agreed to resume shows and said discussions were ongoing. A Film Chamber meeting, he said, has been scheduled for May 8 where all stakeholders will sit down together.

“I think a solution will be found this time before Peddi’s release. The producers and exhibitors are not outsiders. Everyone is from the industry. I think the industry leaders will sit down and make a decision that is acceptable to everyone without causing any problems,” he said.

What the exhibitors are asking for

Single-screen theatre owners in Telangana wanted to move away from the rental model that has governed the industry for decades. They wanted to replace this with a percentage-based model, where revenue from ticket sales is divided between distributors and exhibitors according to an agreed formula, similar to how multiplexes have operated for years.

Starting April 3, 23 single-screen theatres in the Nizam region moved to the new system on their own, proposing a 60-50-40 revenue split across the first three weeks of a film’s theatrical run.

However, the Telugu Film Producers Guild formally rejected the proposal, with Dil Raju the only notable exception among its members. But it is Mythri that has drawn the sharpest response from exhibitors, because the production house has been the most publicly and consistently resistant to any shift away from the rental system.

That resistance resulted in the ban of Jetlee on its release date. The Asian Cinemas chain and theatres under Sri Venkateswara Creations, both of which control a significant portion of Telangana’s multiplex market and have aligned themselves with the exhibitors’ demand, simply did not put the film on their schedules. Without those screens, Jetlee had no real presence in Hyderabad at all.

Peddi, directed by Buchi Babu Sana and starring Ram Charan alongside Janhvi Kapoor, is among the most anticipated Telugu releases of the year. It is scheduled for June 4. The film is distributed in association with Mythri, which means every unresolved grievance the exhibitors have against the production house applies equally to Peddi. If the May 8 meeting produces no agreement, there is no reason to expect Peddi’s release in Telangana to look any different from Jetlee’s.

The difference is the scale. A compromised release for a film of that size, in a market as important as Hyderabad, would be damaging in a way that is difficult to recover from over a film’s theatrical run. For Mythri, it would mean two consecutive releases damaged by the same dispute. For the exhibitors, blocking a film of Peddi’s stature would be the most forceful demonstration yet of how far they are willing to take this.