Actor Syed Jibran Calls for The Legend of Maula Jatt’s Distributors to Screen It at More Cinemas

The actor tweeted about how several cinemas across the country are not screening the highly-anticipated film.

Bilal Lashari and Ammara Hikmat’s uber-budget movie, The Legend of Maula Jatt, has ended up in another controversy after passing through legal hurdles. Following the matter of jacked-up ticket prices just before the official release, not only has its quality been criticized but it is only being shown at certain cinemas only and not at the Cinepax and Nueplex cinema chains.

It was learned that an agreement between the film producer, distributor, and cinema house owners to reduce the ticket prices has not been reached yet.

SAMAA Digital reported that the Chief Financial Officer of Cinepax cinemas (Pakistan’s largest cinema chain), Tariq Mehboob, revealed that the negotiations with the film’s distributor and producer are underway and matters will be settled soon.

The Legend of Maula Jatt is currently only being screened at six theatres in Lahore — Cue, Chalo, Gulistan, Shabistan, Prince and Universal cinemas. It is also being screen at two cinemas in Gujranwala – the Opera and Prince cinemas, two in Multan – the Universal and Dreamland cinemas, two in Sialkot –the Opera and Parwana cinemas, Centaurus Cineplex in Islamabad, Faisal Cinemas in Gujrat, IMGC Multiplex in Sargodha, and in Mandi Bahauddin. Besides these, it is also being shown at the Atrium Cinemas in Karachi.

Overall, it’s a very limited number of cinemas considering that the movie has been touted as Pakistan’s movie of the decade’ on social media.

The Arena Cinemas in Karachi issued a statement on Instagram yesterday, apologizing for the delay and blamed it on the distributors.

It read: “We apologise to our customers for the inconvenience faced due to potential increase in the ticket price of The Legend of Maula jatt. The issue is coming from the distributors of the movie”.

They added that they will soon have “good news” after negotiations with the distributor.

Commenting on the situation, actor Syed Jibran called it a “deadlock” and said the distributor’s demand to increase ticket prices for a larger share is “very unwise” and a bad decision.

He tweeted yesterday that the deadlock for the screening of the movie is between distributor Nadeem Mandviwalla and the officials of Cinepax cinemas and Nueplex, and suggested that instead of increasing the price of the ticket, it should have been reduced to Rs. 800 instead of Rs. 1,200 or more so that revenues “go through the roof”.

“Increasing the ticket price they are just decreasing the repeat customers. It’s shortsightedness. Plain and simple. This will badly damage the reputation as well as a chance to create a historic box office first day score for the film,” he explained.

Jibran mentioned that of the 122 cinema screens in Pakistan, almost 50 of the main multiplex screens had not released a schedule for The Legend of Maula Jatt a day after its official release, which, he noted was “the most important trend setting first day of the film”.

He urged for the predicament to be resolved as soon as possible otherwise no one else would be blamed for the “underperformance of probably the greatest film of Pakistan ever made”.

Do you agree with Syed Jibran’s statements? Were you able to watch the movie yourself? Let us know in the comments below.