namma mejura

When it comes to movies, Madurai used to have a special place. Actors usually get a large fan base here. It was said that every actor worth his name in tamil filmdom will have a fan club in Madurai!

With such a dubious distinction, film going in Madurai used to be a rough experience. Ticket booths used to be heavily barricaded & private guards stand around ticket booth to ward off storming youths. These youths were storming ticket booths not to capture it, but only to buy tickets!!

Well, those days are gone! Theatres now wear a desolate look, except for a few inaugural shows of established stars. Even acclaimed films do not draw a full house after first week. So theatre owners have the option of either converting the vital land for better usage .. or .. pamper the visitors with better experience.

Second rung theatres like Jeyaraj (near LadyDoak College) & Pandian (near Vilangudi) were converted into an Apartment-cum-Shopping complex.

Some other theatres were opting to pamper the visitors. Ganesh & Sundaram (kk nagar) theatres were taken over by Reliance’s Big cinemas, and these were now on par with other Big cinema theatres all over the country. The famed Regal theatre was revamped & now draw crowds mainly due to the facilities there.

An individual theatre on the outskirts – the Mani Impala (near Tirunagar) is now converted into a multiplex of 3 theatres and said to be on par with Big cinema group or Satyam multiplex.

Of the previous multiple theatres (not multiplexes), the Priya theatre complex seem to have the potential of becoming a multiplex, but it shows no sign of improvement.

Cinema halls in Madurai were slowly turning over to online booking for some of their premium tickets. Since the Ganesh theatre (at Kuruvikaran Salai) was taken over by Adlabs, the tickets of Adlabs Ganesh are available through their site – just as other Adlab theatres all over the country.

For other theatres like Priya Complex, Ambika – Mookambika and a few others, there is limata.com. The site doesn’t look confident inspiring. But nevertheless they do offer a mobile number as an alternative to book & get home delivery. Please comment below if you already booked through these sites. It would help others in making their decision.