Tamil film Puli, starring actor Vijay, will not be showing across UAE cinemas following news that the movie’s early screenings have been pulled from around the world. Calls to theatres in Dubai revelead that cinemas have not yet received the go-ahead from distributors to show the film, despite the fact that it was scheduled to release across the UAE on Thursday.
Early morning shows in India and the overseas premiere of the film were cancelled for reasons still unclear.
The shows of the fantasy-drama film that were scheduled as early as 4am and 5am by theatres here on Thursday have been cancelled.
“Even we are not sure why we have been asked to cancel the special shows. We are waiting for go ahead from Qube to release the film,” a theatre representative said.
According to an industry source, the makers of Puli were yet to get clearance from Qube — the company that streams movies digitally.
“Rumour has it that producers of Puli are yet to clear dues to Qube. As soon as it is settled, theatres are expected to get the green signal to screen the movie,” the source said.
Another source said that due to the income tax (IT) raid on the producers and financier of Puli on Thursday, they are yet to get financial clearance to pay exhibitors.
“Due to the IT raid, the producers were not allowed to move funds to clear last minute payments. This could be one of the reasons why exhibitors did not get clearance to screen the film,” the source said.
Theatres in Chennai that had planned to screen the film at 8am and 9am have also cancelled the shows.
“We hear that we may get clearance to screen the film from noon onwards. But we still are not sure about the same,” the theatre representative said.
The film’s overseas distributor, Atmus Entertainment, posted on their Twitter page on Thursday that all the premiere shows were cancelled in Canada and the US.
The release of the film in its dubbed Hindi and Telugu versions also remain doubtful.
Directed by Chimbu Deven, the film also stars Sridevi, Shruti Haasan and Hansika Motwani in important roles.
