Time was when there were over 2000 cinema houses in the country. Now that figure has plummeted to 150.
Most of the old historic cinema houses have been pulled down and converted into plazas or marriage halls by their owners as many Lollywood movies were not making enough money at the box office for a variety of reasons but mainly due to the fact that their standard had fallen down considerably and the likes of old Pakistani movies like Wada, Kirtar Singh, Intezaar, Baji, Saheli, Jhoomar, Moseqar, Sarfarosh, Chanwey, Armaan, Firangi, etc. etc. to mention a few which competed favourably with Indian movies in the Pakistani cinema houses before 1965 and made big money weren’t being produced any longer.
Meanwhile, introduction of VCR had also eaten into the cinema house culture and the average cinegoer started preferring seeing movies sitting in the cozy drawing rooms of his house instead of going to the cinema houses. The cumulative effect of all this affected the income of cinema house owners who were forced to close down their cinema houses.
One remembers that an effort was made during Musharraf ‘s era to revive cinema house culture through cinepax but no concrete headway could be made and it was left half way as a bad bargain. The old cinegoers of the country nonetheless feel nostalgic on the eclipse of cinema house culture which was a source of good entertainment to the common man of the country on a modest expenditure.
