The spread of the new coronavirus has done a number on the Iranian movie industry, as movie theaters have been closed and the audience have been advised not to leave home.
Now that film producers and cinema veterans face huge financial loss, the movie industry is turning to online screening platforms.
The movie ‘Exodus’ directed by Ebrahim Hatamikia was scheduled to screen online on April 12, Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture reported.
The ticket price for this film is 120,000 rials ($0.75).
According to the local video streaming service provider Filimo, the film will be available for online streaming for six hours after purchase.
It had been previously planned to be available for 24 hours, but Filimo reduced the time to prevent illegal copying and release of the film. It became available to the public after 8 p.m. local time on Sunday, according to the Persian economic daily Donya-e-Eqtesad.
Iranian box office earnings amounted to over 170 billion rials (about $1 million) during the 15 days to April 4, 2019, which marks the last day of the previous New Iranian year holidays, but this year the earnings declined to zero as movie theaters were shut down.
It is hoped that online screening could help compensate at least part of the huge losses for those active in the movie business.
Iran's box office earnings during the last Iranian year (ended March 19, 2020) stood at 2.96 trillion rials ($18.5 million) to register an increase of 22.48% compared to the year before.
A total of 74 movie titles were released in Iranian theaters during the 12-month period under review and over 25.89 million people went to the movies, according to data published in www.panel.cinemashahr.ir–the official Iranian cinema website providing detailed information on box office earnings to the public. The outlet became operational on Feb. 25, 2019.
The number of moviegoers witnessed a year-on-year decrease of 6.53% during the year.
The average cinema ticket prices stood at 114,488 ($0.7), up by 27,115 ($0.16) or 31.03% year-on-year.
The above figures indicate that the rise in box office earnings stems from the increase in ticket prices and not in the number of moviegoers.
Close to half of the box office earnings came from only six movie titles, namely the comedy “Motreb” directed by Mostafa Kiaei with 385.45 billion rials ($2.33 million), "6.5 Per Meter" directed by Saeed Roustayi with 271.98 billion rials ($1.64 million), "Texas 2" directed by Masoud Atyabi with 250.88 billion rials ($1.52 million), "Rahman 1400" directed by Manouchehr Hadi with 218.91 billion rials ($1.32 million), “When the Moon Became Full” directed by Narges Abyar with 190.12 billion rials ($1.15 million) and “The Warden” directed by Nima Javidi with 149.81 billion rials ($907,959). The six titles earned a total of 1.46 trillion rials ($8.89 million) combined.
Notably, the film "Motreb" became the highest grossing movie in the history of the Iranian cinema.
Each Iranian goes to the movies 0.3 times per year on average, according to an earlier Donya-e-Eqtesad report.
