PVR INOX Brand Guidelines: Priya Village Roadshow, a 1997 Opening and a 2023 Merger

A Delhi cinema and an Australian partner.

The PVR half of the name began with one cinema. English Wikipedia says the Priya Cinema in Vasant Vihar, Delhi, was bought by the family of Ajay Bijli in 1978, and that he took it over in 1988 and had it revamped in 1990.

In 1995 the company was set up as a 60:40 joint venture between Priya Exhibitors and Village Roadshow of Australia. Its cinemas began trading in June 1997 as Priya Village Roadshow, the source of the letters PVR, with a multiplex at Saket in New Delhi. The company celebrated 25 years in August 2022, EVENTFAQS reported, counting from that 1997 opening. Village Roadshow left the partnership in 2003, when ICICI Ventures invested, and in 2006 PVR’s shares were listed on the National Stock Exchange and the Bombay Stock Exchange, English Wikipedia says.

PVR grew by building and by buying. It launched its Gold Screen auditoriums in 2007, moved into film production and distribution with PVR Pictures the same year, opened an IMAX theatre in Bengaluru in 2012 and introduced a “superplex” in Noida in 2014. It bought Cinemax India in 2012, DLF’s DT Cinemas in 2016 and SPI Cinemas of Chennai, the business behind Sathyam Cinemas, in 2018, and rebranded those cinemas as PVR, English Wikipedia says.

INOX, the 2023 merger and two names on the door.

The INOX half came out of industry. English Wikipedia says INOX Leisure was incorporated in November 1999 as part of the Inox Group, whose name comes from Industrial Oxygen, and opened four-screen multiplexes in Pune and Vadodara in 2002. It grew through purchases, including 89 Cinemas in West Bengal and Assam and Satyam Cineplexes, and in October 2022 it bought Luxe, an 11-screen cinema at Phoenix Marketcity in Chennai.

The two companies announced their merger in March 2022. Mint reported that the stock exchanges approved it in June 2022 and PVR’s shareholders in October 2022, and that the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal sanctioned the scheme on 12 January 2023. The merger became effective on 6 February 2023, with an appointed date of 1 January 2023, Mint reported, and PVR Limited formally became PVR INOX Limited on 20 April 2023, according to Zee Business. At the time of the tribunal’s approval, Mint said the merged company would be the largest film exhibition company in India, with 1,546 screens across 341 properties in 109 cities.

The merger set a clear naming rule. Existing cinemas would keep their PVR and INOX names, and only cinemas opened after the merger would carry the PVR INOX name, Mint reported in January 2023. So the listed company has three consumer-facing names at once, and two websites, pvrcinemas.com and inoxmovies.com. The company is based in Gurugram, Haryana, English Wikipedia says, and its distribution arm, PVR Pictures, was renamed PVR INOX Pictures in 2023.

How cinema chains present themselves.

Cinema chains sell an evening out more than a product, so their own pictures do much of the work. The pictures a chain publishes are mostly of its rooms: auditoriums with rows of seats facing the screen, and foyers, concession counters and bars. In 2025 the Milwaukee station FOX6 filmed the lobby of the Marcus Majestic in Waukesha, Wisconsin, whose manager described the aim as to “wow and dazzle” guests.

Screen formats have become brands of their own. Chains name their large-format rooms, their recliner rooms and their dine-in rooms, and carry outside names such as IMAX, Dolby Atmos sound and moving-seat 4D. Spanish Wikipedia lists a family of Cinemex room names, from CinemeXtremo for its large-format screens to Platino for recliners with seat service; in February 2026, Deadline reported, Marcus Theatres told analysts that a growing share of its sales came from premium large-format and 3D showings.

The booking app and the loyalty card are now part of the identity too. Chains run points schemes, tiered memberships and subscription-style clubs. When Cinemex changed its logo in December 2024, its chief executive said the app and website would change with it, Merca 2.0 reported; Marcus Theatres told analysts in 2026 that it was concentrating on a dine-in app, loyalty programmes and a movie club, according to Deadline.

Behind the consumer brand there is usually a corporate one: a listed parent, a family holding company or a private-equity owner, with its own pages on ownership, sites and screen counts. This guide sets out what can be checked about each chain — who founded it, who owns it and how large it is, as dated sources give it — and treats claims about comfort or scale as the companies’ own.

Formats, anniversaries and a growing map.

PVR INOX sells its auditoriums as named formats. English Wikipedia lists Gold Screen from 2007, 4DX from 2016 and ICE, an immersive format introduced in Delhi NCR in 2022. Its luxury offering is Insignia; in a December 2023 interview with BusinessLine, its executive director said luxury screens were a small share of the circuit, not more than about 25. In February 2024 the company turned the Eros Cinema in Churchgate, Mumbai, a heritage building, into a standalone IMAX theatre, and in April 2024 it opened a megaplex at Phoenix Mall of Asia in Bengaluru, English Wikipedia says.

The PVR name has also been restyled for occasions. For 25 years in August 2022 the company released a brand film, “Iss Andhere mein bahut Roshni hai” — “There is light in this darkness” — in which the actor Aamir Khan unveiled a 25th-anniversary logo, a commemorative ticket and the chain’s NFT coin, EVENTFAQS reported. For a few months around the release of the film RRR in March 2022, the chain styled itself “PVRRR” across its cinemas, English Wikipedia says, and English Wikipedia also shows a PVR logo it dates from 2001 to 2019.

The map keeps growing. On 5 November 2026 the company opened a five-screen cinema at Pacific Mall in Jaipur with what BusinessLine called Rajasthan’s first IMAX auditorium, taking its IMAX network to 27 screens; BusinessLine said PVR INOX then ran 1,802 screens across 359 properties in 114 cities in India and Sri Lanka.

The Jaipur cinema shows how the company packages a single site. Its four mainstream screens use 4K laser projection and Dolby audio, and the property adds Celebrity Recliners, a Cinema Food Court and self-ordering food kiosks, BusinessLine reported, with seating for 949 people in all. In the December 2023 interview, the executive director said the company was looking hardest at South India, where new malls were opening and where single-screen cinemas still sat beside multiplexes, and at smaller cities there such as Vellore and Machilipatnam that had no multiplex; he added that integrating INOX’s systems was still under way.

For a design guide, PVR INOX shows how a merged company can keep two well-known consumer names and add a third, rather than replace them. Compare Cinépolis, which English Wikipedia says brought 4DX to India before PVR, and AMC Theatres, the American chain. For this guide we use an ink blue, cream and a marigold with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep PVR INOX’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.