Cinema halls to remain shut till August 31: MHA

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) recently released nationwide 'Unlock 3' guidelines, which on one hand opened up some more activities outside the containment zones, but cinema halls along with other places continue to remain shut. The guideline further revealed that the restriction on cinema halls will remain in place till August 31.

The entertainment industry has been hit hard by four month long COVID-19 lockdown. As the shoots for many of the films have already begun and with cinema halls still getting no-go from the government, more and more production houses are going to take the second resort, which is digital OTT release. The trend started with Amitabh Bachchan and Ayushman's starrer 'Gulabo Sitabo', which was released on 'Amazon Prime Video'.

'Disney+ Hotstar' have lined up seven new releases, which includes 'Laxmmi Bomb' (Akshay Kumar and Kiara Advani), 'Bhuj: The Pride of India' (Ajay Devgn, Sonakshi Sinha and Sanjay Dutt), 'Sadak 2' (Alia Bhatt, Aditya Roy Kapur and Pooja Bhatt), 'The Big Bull' (Abhishek Bachchan), 'Khuda Haafiz' (Vidyut Jammwal) and 'Lootcase' (Kunal Kemmu and Rasika Dugal). Other OTT platforms like 'Netflix' have also bought digital rights of Janhvi Kapoor-starrer 'Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl'.