York Cinemas in Canada has stopped screening Jailer 2 from Wednesday, October 21. In a statement on Instagram, the exhibitor said it had met all its financial commitments and payments for the film but never received valid KDMs, the digital keys it needs to play it.
"Without valid KDMs, we are technically unable to continue screening the film," the statement said, calling the decision one made in "circumstances beyond the control of York Cinemas".
What a KDM is
A KDM, or Key Delivery Message, is the digital key that unlocks a film's encrypted print. A theatre can have the film on its servers, but without a valid key it cannot play it.
That is why a hit can vanish from a screen overnight even after the theatre has paid. According to York Cinemas, the keys were due from the film's North American distributors, Shloka Entertainments and Prathyangira Cinemas, once production house Sun Pictures authorised them. That authorisation never came, it said, despite its efforts to resolve the issue.
The exhibitor apologised to moviegoers for the disappointment and inconvenience. As of Wednesday, neither Sun Pictures nor the distributors had responded publicly.
A strong first week
The halt comes less than a week after Jailer 2 opened worldwide on October 15. Shloka Entertainments is the distributor whose post we used when the film crossed $2 million in North America.
Directed by Nelson Dilipkumar and produced by Sun Pictures, the film stars Rajinikanth with SJ Suryah, Vidya Balan, Mithun Chakraborty, Ramya Krishnan, Yogi Babu and Mirnaa Menon. Anirudh Ravichander composed the music.
For Kerala audiences, the film has Suraj Venjaramoodu in the cast and a Mohanlal cameo whose climax has its own talking point: the action director says Mohanlal did the climax car scene himself.
