Dragon U.S. Premieres Canceled – Lack of Confidence?

This Friday, the Tamil box office will witness an interesting clash between two small films with decent buzz—Dragon and NEEK (Nilavuku En Mel Ennadi Kobam).

Surprisingly, Dragon was supposed to have U.S. premieres and even sold tickets for 7:30 p.m. EST shows.

However, the makers changed their minds and started refunding the tickets.

According to the U.S. distributor, they wanted to align the U.S. shows with the India screenings, which start around 9 a.m. IST. This means the U.S. premieres will now begin after 10 p.m. local time— a slot that rarely attracts audiences to theaters.

This situation is almost equivalent to canceling the U.S. premieres altogether.

Generally, when a film has its U.S. premieres past 10 p.m., it either indicates weak content or an extremely mass-heavy, routine film that doesn’t appeal to overseas audiences. But in Dragon’s case, the film has generated enough buzz. Yet, despite opening shows and selling tickets, refunds were suddenly issued after the makers changed their plans.

Only once the movie releases will we know the real reason behind this last-minute decision—whether it’s weak content or something else. As for NEEK, the film was never planned to have U.S. premieres from the beginning. But what Dragon did surprised everyone.