Ghost Karnataka list of theatres has Leo fans wondering about film’s prospects

The box office battle in Karnataka this Dasara is going to be quite tough what with multiple biggies releasing in theatres between October 19 and 20. As the local favourite, Karunada Chakravarthy Shivarajkumar’s Ghost is believed to have an edge in terms of buzz and the screens they’ve got. The MG Srinivas directed films is releasing in 350 screens across Karnataka, which is a good number in the state where single-screens are dwindling fast. The team has released a first list of theatres, according to which, Ghost has some of the prime single-screens. This, of course, has got Thalapathy fans worried, about the screens Leo will get.

“Major local theatres already blocked by other films. Don’t know what distributors Swagath Enterprises will do now,” wrote one, while another added that the distributor was not doing enough promotions for the film in Karnataka and urged them to organize some offline events in the coming days. According to industry trackers, Leo has got only about 100 screens, including six IMAX theatres in Bengaluru and with Ravi Teja’s Tiger Nageshwara Rao, Nandamuri Balakrishna’s Bhagavanth Kesari and Tiger Shroff’s Ganpath also vying for a share of the box office, getting anymore screens will depend on word of mouth publicity of the competition after day 1.

Netizens reckon that the lack of on-ground promotion for Leo is because of the simmering tension between the two states owing to the Cauvery water sharing issue, which saw actor Siddharth chased out of a press briefing even for the Kannada version of his film. While this is not expected to impact the film in theatres, what is giving Vijay fans something to cheer is the buzz that the distribution house is looking at beginning the film’s box office campaign as early as 4 am in the state. If this turns out to be true, audiences in Karnataka will be among the first to see Leo.