3 minutes of readingHyderabadFebruary 8, 2026 05:30 pm IST
Filmmaker SS Rajamouli and his team had to build a 100 x 130 feet screen to show the teaser of their epic time travel Varanasi in Hyderabad last year. He has now promised to stage a dharna outside the IMAX office in Los Angeles if there are not enough IMAX screens available in India before the film’s planned theatrical release on April 7, 2027.
However, it is not easy to build an IMAX screen, especially in India. Given the infrastructure in the US, building a new IMAX screen there costs between $10 million and Rs 15 million, i.e. between Rs 9 crore and Rs 13 crore. But in India it is even more expensive. Building an IMAX screen in India can cost up to Rs 25 crore.
Building an IMAX screen is not just about scale, but also about a technological upgrade. It also involves the purchase and maintenance of IMAX equipment such as projectors and screens. Being a specialized technology, IMAX signs long-term agreements (10 years) with local exhibitors or national cinema chains for the same.
For example, nine years ago, PVR signed an agreement with IMAX, where it invested Rs 50 crore to build five more IMAX screens in India. These included three new screens and the modernization of two existing screens. The investment in each IMAX screen was Rs 10 million back then, four times the investment in a normal screen (Rs 2 million to Rs 2.5 million).
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IMAX tickets in India are priced on average at least Rs 100-120 above the normal ticket price. Because the baseline itself is so low, it is becoming increasingly difficult to cover the high costs through footfall. It takes even more than four years to recover the construction costs of an IMAX screen despite the relatively higher prices.
As of 2026, there will be 35 IMAX screens in India, far fewer than the 400 in the US and 800 in China. This is fairly slow progress, given that IMAX entered China in 2002, a year after it did so in India in 2001.
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IMAX has said it is open to SS Rajamouli’s request for more IMAX screens in India, provided a local partner accepts the deal.
In an interview with The Economic Times, IMAX Chief Business Officer Giovanni Dolci stated that IMAX’s growth in India has been almost 60% since 2020 in the last six years. However, there is scope to create at least 150 more IMAX screens in India.
Starring Mahesh Babu as Rudhra, Priyanka Chopra as Mandakini and Prithviraj Sukumaran as the antagonist Kumbha, Varanasi will also have one of its own. worlds inspired by a chapter of the Indian epic Ramayanain which Mahesh will essay Lord Rama.