The outbreak of the COVID-19 Novel Corona Virus Pandemic has turned everybody's lives upside-down. Shooting for movies have been put on hold and all theatres have been shutdown and it is over 130 days since this happened. Now Pannerselvam, theatre owners association President and proprietor of Rohini Silverscreen has issued a statement to the government to permit them to resume their theatre business - “It’s been close to 140 days since all our theatres have been shut down, our livelihood has become a big question mark now. Neither the Indian Government nor the State Government has given a proper announcement on when we can resume work. Bank loan, interest, electricity charges, and salary – don't know how to handle these expenses with no revenue options. We are ready to reopen the theatres and function as per the guidelines issued by the government. We have asked the government and are hoping for a favourable result or else all the theatre owners would suffer heavily and I don’t know how some theatre owners are going to handle this pressure. These are testing times for everyone but theatre owners are the most affected and why we alone should not work? Even travel through flights from one place to another sitting next to another passenger, I don’t think, a theatre is any less safe than an aeroplane. Then only the theatres need to be closed while all the other industries are working normally.

So, I wish the government interferes in this matter and take a favourable decision for the wellbeing of the theatre owners very soon. We are ready to follow all the guidelines that will be enforced by the government, we are ready to sell tickets only for alternate seats, we are ready to not screen night shows during this pandemic. Whatever the government wants us to follow, we will do. During this lockdown phase, theatre owners in total have suffered a loss of 1,400 crores, this is just for the theatre owners. Each theatre would have suffered around 20 to 25 lakhs loss per month. We are not sure the loss incurred by the producers. But we predict overall, the film industry would have incurred a loss close to 7,000 crores.” 
 
When asked about their stand on not ready to release films starring Suriya, Jyothika or Karthi for releasing Ponmagal Vandhal directly on OTT, Pannerselvam said - “We never said, we won’t screen their films, we only asked them to screen all their films on OTT. We are stubborn in our decision; we are not ready to accept people who are willing to destroy our livelihood.”