All the tickets of ten screens of PVR Cinemas in Elante Mall and Centra Mall here have been sold out upto February 18 for Sirsa based Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh’s upcoming movie ‘MSG: Messenger of God’, which is going to release on Friday across the country.
The controversial movie will be released at over 4,000 screens of PVR Cinema across the country besides other cinemas on February 13. MSG is already banned in Punjab and the followers from the neighbouring State are also likely to visit Chandigarh to watch the movie.
“The Dera followers are eagerly waiting for the release of MSG. Keeping in view the enthusiasm of Dera followers for the movie, we are now trying to hire more screens in Fun Republic and Piccadilly Mall here to accommodate our large number of followers,” said Pawan Singla, in-charge of Chandigarh unit of the Dera Sacha Sauda
“The ten screens including six in Elante Mall and four in Centra Mall, each has the sitting capacity of 200 plus people. Around, ten thousand Dera followers would be able to watch the movie in a day here, which seems insufficient for us”, he said.
He added that as MSG is not going to release in Punjab, the people from places like ludhiana, Mohali, Ropar, Patiala, Sirhind, Khanna, Gobindgarh, Morinda, Samrala, Jallandhar, Nawashahar etc. would also come here to watch the movie. Earlier, the movie was scheduled to release on January 16 but it could not release due to non-clearance from the censor board.
Various groups of Sikh community had protested against its release. Some Sikh organisations had also approached court, where, the Court had dismissed their petition to ban the movie.
The Sect leader, Gurmeet Ram Rahim, who plays the protagonist in the film, is its director, singer and lyricist, and has been aggressively promoting the film countrywide. The Sect has claimed that the movie is not against any religion or group and was only highlighting social evils.
‘MSG: Messenger of God’, is expected to do huge business on the very first day of its release. As a ticket of PVR cinema starts from Rs150 and goes up to Rs600 plus, huge earnings from over 4000 PVR Cinemas across the country is expected. Apart from this, several other cinemas will also release the movie in parts of the country.
Meanwhile, Sikh leaders submitted a memorandum to Chandigarh Administration on Thursday seeking ban on the release of the movie. They said that the UT Administration would be responsible if anything untoward happened here.