Coimbatore: Gone are the days when you could find 500 people or more flocking to one cinema hall to watch a movie. As the culture of multiplexes is growing in the state, the size of the halls is shrinking while the number of movies is increasing.More than a decade ago, Coimbatore had cinema halls with one large screen that could accommodate 500 or more people. There were few theatre complexes with two or maximum three screens.It was almost five years ago that multiplexes came to the city along with malls. At the same time, the growing cosmopolitan crowd began evincing interest in watching non-Tamil movies. "The crowd that wishes to watch non-Tamil movies is small. But we manage to fill 70% seats of a 150-seater hall easily. This way we do not lose out on revenue," said Subramaniam.Small budget movies too find a platform to screen their movies. Producer Sameer Bharat Ram said: "It is not easy for a small budget movie to become popular the moment it hits the screen. The first weekend formula for us does not work. So the theatre owners are jittery about screening a small budget film, especially on a large screen." He added, "It takes about two days for us to become popular and if we manage to get 60-70% occupancy in small screens, we are happy; so are the theatre owners."Sameer feels that in the age of online distribution platforms, multiplexes are the next big thing for the audience. "There has to be a strong reason for the audience to come to a theatre and watch films. And multiplexes do exactly that," he said.While multiplexes are a welcome trend for theatre owners and producers, movie buffs feel the fun of watching a movie is lost. "There are too many rules inside a multiplex . When I was in college, we would whistle for the actor's entry scene. Today, even if you laugh for a joke, people frown at you," said Vijay Kumar Krishnan, a 37-year-old businessman from NGGO Colony.

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