Mumbai/New Delhi:It’s business as usual at Eros Cinema in Churchgate, Mumbai, on a warm Tuesday morning, as it has been for the past 86 years. A film production team is scanning the premises for a premiere scheduled to take place over the weekend; the veteran director and some other members of the team will interact with the audience after the special screening, they say. Meanwhile, the staff prepares for the next show of Hollywood action flick Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, the only film playing through the day that week.
Not much has changed at the iconic red and cream coloured building in south Mumbai for nearly nine decades, except for a recent addition to the theatre’s name and screen format—it is now known as Eros IMAX, after the 70 mm motion picture film format and projection system. This is the first IMAX screen in south Mumbai and was launched by IMAX’s Canadian parent in collaboration with Inox, India’s biggest multiplex chain, which now operates Eros. The Eros building, commissioned in 1935 by Parsi businessman Shiavax Cawasji Cambata, hasn’t lost its vintage vibe on the outside and still retains much of its Victorian Gothic and Art Deco style architecture.
But some parts of the interior, including the lobby and the gigantic auditorium, have been remodelled and converted to accommodate the immersive Canadian screen format, which is rapidly gaining ground across the country thanks to multiplex operators such as PVR Inox, which are looking to up the premium gam.
