Director Vinod Kapri says his film Pyre lost more than 75% of its shows within two days of Ramayana opening in theatres.

Pyre opened in India on 30 October with about 80 shows. Good word of mouth pushed it past 400 shows in two to four days.

Then the count dropped below 100 over the next two days. In Delhi, Kapri said daily shows fell from 66 to 16.

He posted a video on X and Instagram on 7 November, with screenshots that included a screen recording from the BookMyShow app.

Kapri says theatre owners and distributors told him they had been instructed that no other film would be screened.

He did not name the film. But the cuts came after Nitesh Tiwari's Ramayana: Rise of Legend opened on 5 November.

"We too deserve a fair chance; please don't do this injustice," the National Award-winning director said in his appeal.

Pyre is set in Uttarakhand's Kumaon region. It follows an elderly couple waiting for a son who left the village decades ago.

Ramayana is being made in two parts with a reported combined budget of Rs 4,000 crore. Ranbir Kapoor plays Ram.

Its studio-reported opening was 55.7 million dollars worldwide over four days, a Diwali record for an Indian film.

Theatre chains and distributors have not been quoted so far. For now the claim rests on Kapri's own account.

Read the full story on the Pyre screen row on Trends News Stories.

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