Hindi
Carnival Cinemas and MovieTime form strategic alliance
Mumbai: Multiplex chain Carnival Cinemas on Monday announced a strategic partnership with MovieTime Cinemas.
As part of this alliance, Carnival will offer business management services to MovieTime for operating their existing portfolio of 65 screens and also other upcoming screens as and when they start running.
Carnival will bring in its expertise to tap the synergies between both the exhibitor brands for strengthening their market standing in the cinema exhibition space.
Carnival Cinemas is accelerating towards its ‘Vision 1,000 screens’ in the next two years and this scaling up will further help it to carve a win-win for all partners involved, said the statement.
Carnival Cinemas is currently present in 120 cities at 162 locations with 450+ screens. With this tie-up, Carnival will now be managing the operations of about 525+ screens across India, it added.
“We are very happy to join hands with MovieTime and explore various ways of value addition for both the entities. We are also looking at synergy in other fields where we both can operate in spaces such as food business,” said Chairman Carnival Group, chairman, Shrikant Bhasi.
“We are pretty confident that, this association will help both of us enhance each other’s operational efficiencies,” MovieTime Cinemas, chairman, Anil Kapoor.
MovieTime Cinemas presently operates in Maharashtra, New Delhi, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, J&K, Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Punjab, and Telangana under the owned and leased models.
Hindi
Jio Studios, Sanjay Dutt team up to revive Khal Nayak
Rights acquired for new version, format under wraps as remake plans take shape.
MUMBAI: The villain is back and this time, he’s rewriting his own script. Jio Studios has partnered with Three Dimension Motion Pictures and Aspect Entertainment to revive the 1993 cult classic Khal Nayak, marking a fresh chapter for one of Bollywood’s most iconic anti-hero stories. The original film, directed by Subhash Ghai under Mukta Arts, was a commercial and cultural milestone, with Sanjay Dutt’s portrayal of Ballu becoming one of Hindi cinema’s most memorable performances.
Dutt, along with Aksha Kamboj, has now acquired the rights from the original creators, bringing on board Jio Studios and its President Jyoti Deshpande to steer the project creatively.
While the exact format whether remake, sequel, prequel, or a completely new narrative remains undisclosed, the collaboration aims to reinterpret the story for contemporary audiences while retaining the essence that made the original a defining film of the 1990s.
The move taps into a broader industry trend of reviving legacy intellectual property, particularly characters with strong recall value. “Khal Nayak” was notable for pushing mainstream Hindi cinema into morally grey territory at a time when heroes were largely one-dimensional, making Ballu’s character a standout.
The project also marks the film production debut of Aspect Entertainment, signalling a push towards more technology-led storytelling frameworks. Meanwhile, Jio Studios continues to expand its slate, having built a library of over 200 films and series, with more than 60 titles collectively winning 500-plus awards.
For Dutt, the revival is as much personal as it is strategic, a return to a role that reshaped his career. For the industry, it is another sign that nostalgia, when paired with scale, remains a powerful box-office proposition.
Because in Bollywood, some villains never fade, they just wait for the perfect comeback.
