Theater owners have been concerned about the low occupancy rates for several films over the last 5 years. Gradually, the occupancy rates for even big films are decreasing past 10 days. Wide releases and huge releases could be a reason for such low turnouts but if a film acquires bad word of mouth, no film is sustaining at theaters beyond 2-3 days.
With Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown imposed to control it, their occupancy rates will even decrease and they have to work with social distancing norms upon re-opening. On top of that, if producers choose to release their films on OTT platforms, they will be losing money, further. Hence, many in Tollywood are putting pressure on producers to not take such routes like Tamil and Hindi producers, who are interested in this OTT release than to wait for the time, when market will re-open.