No new movies will be released across India after April 3, as the film makers could not settle their disputes with multiplex owners over sharing of box-office revenues.  

The rift has come after multiplex owners did not agree to their conditions of 50:50 equality in profits sharing for each movie to distributor and exhibitors, be it a small budget or a big budget film - independent of the star cast.

Film makers as well as distributors, which include some of the largest names in the industry like Yash Chopra, Mahesh Bhatt, Eros International, UTV Motion Pictures, Indian Film Company, brought up their demand in the long-standing fight on Monday.

Hollywood studios including Warner Bros, FOX, Disney and Sony Entertainment Pictures have joined hands with the distributors.

Producer Mukesh Bhatt said, “We’ve been discussing the issue with multiplex-owners for about a month now, but failed to arrive at a solution. We think the revenue share for both parities should be equal.”

“We do not distinguish between small-town properties and prime location properties of multiplexes, so it is unfair for them to differentiate between films based on the starcast.”

Despite an imbalanced share of the profits, the film makers are also fighting against the exhibitor's strategy of having no uniform profit sharing model for the movies.

Exhibitors currently adjust their profit sharing ratio from film to film as per their own grading system.

Currently, there are 240 multiplexes with 849 screens in India, having a capacity of 2, 27,084 seats per show. They are essential to the profits of the film because the tickets cost more vis a vis single screen theatres, resulting in a big profit margin for the producers and distributors.