*Anshuman Mohanty, Shirshendu Ganguli, Gururaj Kidiyoor

Abstract:

The Indian theatrical market is divided into two categories: single screens and multiplexes. This unique fragmentation has led to the movie maker’s indecisiveness regarding the release strategy as some movies perform better in single screens whereas, some perform better in multiplexes. On top of that, although movie genre is deemed to be one of the most crucial factors impacting the audience’s preference, the existing literature has scantily explored the impact of genre preference across the two different movie-watching venues in India. Furthermore, despite the growing importance of escapism and eudaimonism in the leisure literature, researchers have overlooked its relevance in the study of movie genres. This study seeks to bridge this gap in literature by exploring the diversity of escapist and eudaimonic genre preferences in single screens and multiplexes in India. To achieve the objective, a cross-sectional study was conducted, and data was hand collected from 324 moviegoers across five cities.

Keywords: Movie genres, single-screen and multiplexes, cluster and discriminant analyses, escape theory and eudaimonism, southern India