Covid 3.0: After 'Ek Love Ya', team 'Garuda' now pushes release indefinitely

The year 2022 has begun on a rather dull note for all the Kannada cinema patrons as the new wave of the coronavirus pandemic begins to loom large. With a steep rise in the number of positive cases, the govt. of Karnataka had recently released a new set of guidelines that also include a drop in the occupancy rates in cinema halls to 50%. Following this, many filmmakers are now being prompted to push back their releases from the originally scheduled dates.Only a couple of days ago, director Prem took to social media to share that the release of 'Ek Love Ya' won't be happening on the 21st of January, as planned, and the team is currently awaiting a safer and more viable time to bring the film out.Now, following suit is the team of 'Garuda' which announced the change in release plans via a special poster recently. 'Garuda' was to release in cinema halls on January 21st along with 'Ek Love Ya'."We have decided to postpone the release of our film, which was slated for a January 21st theatrical outing. Much as this pains us, we realise that the safety of our audience is more important in these trying times, when Covid cases are on the rise again. We will assess the situation in the days to come and plan to release accordingly," read the poster.'Garuda' has been directed by Dhanakumar K and produced by B.K. Raja Reddy, with Raghu Dixit's music. The film stars Siddharth Mahesh, Srinagar Kitty, Ashika Ranganath, Aindrita Ray, and Kamna Jethmalani.Citing a similar concern of the onset of the new wave, many other Hindi, Telugu, and Tamil film releases too have been postponed indefinitely. Big tickets films like 'RRR', 'Radhe Shyam', 'Jersey', and 'Valimai' have already announced postponements and their new release dates are yet to be announced. It would now be a matter of time before things become clearer with respect to the pandemic and