Few Theaters Boycott Jayeshbhai Jordaar

On Friday, May 13, the long-awaited Ranveer Singh starrer Jayeshbhai Jordaar finally hit theaters. Despite having finished filming in February of this year, the pandemic forced the movie's release date to be postponed until later that year. Yash Raj Films (YRF), the studio behind this picture, has been applauded by audiences and some elements of the business for keeping ticket costs low.

However, Jayeshbhai Jordaar was largely absent from the CP (Central Province) territory's shows. “YRF’s distributor in CP asked for 60% revenue share from single-screen theaters. This was not acceptable to the exhibitors, as Jayeshbhai Jordaar is not an event film. They were willing to play the film at the normal 50% or 52.5% revenue sharing. When YRF refused to negotiate, most of the single screen theaters in the CP territory decided to not screen Jayeshbhai Jordaar,” a source told Bollywood Hungama.

“The exhibitors had the option of playing Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, which did well in Week 1. Also, the Marathi film Dharmaveer has released alongside Jayeshbhai Jordaar and has generated a lot of excitement. Hence, the exhibitors were not at a loss,” the insider said.

As a result, the single-screen theaters in cities like Nagpur, Raipur, etc aren’t playing Jayeshbhai Jordaar. Out of the 300 plus single screens in this region, only 30 of them are playing the social comedy. Moreover, these 30 theaters agreed to screen the film only after YRF agreed to normal revenue-sharing terms with them.

Jayeshbhai Jordaar has a total of 2250 screens in India. Jayeshbhai Jordaar, written and directed by Divyang Thakkar, starring Boman Irani and Ratna Pathak Shah,  marks Shalini Pandey's Bollywood debut.