2024 Apr 25 12:16:15
Prabas Desk: 11 films were released on Eid-ul-Fitr. Among them is the movie ‘Green Card’ starring and produced by Kazi Maruf. The film was screened with only two shows in multiplexes and rented auditoriums in Tangail and Sakhipur.
After three days of its release, the film also went down from the multiplexes. The film is directed by Kazi Hayat and Roshan Ara Nipa. Maruf’s statement in this regard, ‘while making the movie smart, I have made it so smart that those who were my ordinary fans did not go to see the movie, and even the smart viewers did not go to see the movie.’
He said, ‘Also, the multiplex has increased the ticket price. The middle class has no money in their pockets. People will not get sick if they don’t watch movies, but they will get sick if they don’t eat rice. So people don’t watch movies with the money they have in their pockets, they buy food to save their lives.’
Maruf made the movie ‘Green Card’ after spending a lot of time in the US. He came to the country with his family with great expectations to release the film on Eid festival. But during the release of the film, there was a crisis. Did not get a single. Got only a few shows at multiplexes. That too went down after three days.
Maruf regretted a lot and said, ‘The picture could not be shown to the audience. If not, show where? But I think that no film is doing well this Eid. “Rajkumar” is also going well? Not all pictures will be “sweethearts”. And not all films are superhits all the time.’
Commenting this hero, ‘As many cinema halls as there are now, I think 30 to 40 halls will be closed after Eid. Almost all of the rest will be closed within two years. Because there is no hall, there will be no audience for Bengali cinema for a while, Bengali cinema will also decrease. People will watch movies of different countries sitting at home. There may be many cineplexes in the next five years. Then due to the lack of country movies, the movies of neighboring countries will play there.’
But before the release, he did not get it, so why did he take the risk and release it? In this regard, Maruf said, ‘The number of shows I got in the multiplex, I did not understand that there would be no audience. If only 10/12 people watch the movie together, the producer will not be satisfied. Seeing this situation, I myself called Cineplex and asked them to take down my film. Because multiplexes already have system complexity.
He said, ‘If the show hall of my movie is full of audience, I will get only 16 thousand rupees as commission. If this complication of sharing ticket money with the producer continues, at some point no one will make a movie, there will be no movie.’
According to Maruf’s calculations, after the release of ‘Green Card’, which was made at a cost of 4 crore 63 lakh taka, not even a lakh taka came from the theatres. He does not see any possibility of increasing the investment even after the sale of OTT and television.
A very disappointed filmmaker Maruf said, ‘I will not make Bengali films again. Now I will return to the United States and try to make foreign films.’ He is scheduled to return to the United States with his family on May 3.
ShareNews, 25 April 2024
