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It has been a long,tiring summer. Parts of north and west India reeled under unprecedented,high temperatures. But for those looking to escape for a few hours,for schoolchildren on holiday and those desperately bored with Twenty20 cricket,the great Indian diversion wasn’t available: the movie business had effectively shut itself down.

Confirmation finally came in on Saturday that the nine-week dispute between the Multiplex Association of India (MAI) and the United Distributors-Producers’ Forum (UDPF) has been settled. It is customary in such cases to call the agreement “amicable” but it might well be the case that in this instance the word is particularly inapplicable. The spark for the settlement,after all,was the defection of the multiplex chain Big Cinemas; the distributors hailed the defection as a victory for the sensible,corporate side of things — Big Cinemas is Reliance-owned — while their fellow-multiplexers are clearly smarting.

The exact form of the settlement isn’t yet publicly available,but the broad ideas are. Importantly for consumers,there appear to be — as the MAI wanted — at least some penalties in terms of profit-sharing for the producers and distributors of movies that don’t do well. Worryingly,however,the domination of the bigger production houses that compose the UDPF seems to be such that,even in the absence of “big” releases,few movies from smaller stables seemed to be able to emerge to take up the slack and become “sleeper” successes. The producers would do well not to feel particularly empowered by this,however: with greater market discipline,their protected status won’t last forever. But most importantly for the Indian movie-goer,parched for airconditioning and celluloid nourishment alike,there will be new releases. It’s a real summer again.