By Surendra Bhatia
Is Dabangg 3 a hit or a flop? This is a question to which there is an unequivocal answer: it is a flop. For a Salman Khan film to end up with a lifetime collection of less than Rs. 150 crore is — sorry to be rude — pathetic, and even more pathetic that it should be a new film in a successful franchise — which carries the goodwill of its previous editions. But such is the reality. Half-baked story, insipid screenplay and juvenile antics of the third edition have put paid to the Dabangg franchise.
Once it released, it was no secret to any Bollywood person that the much-awaited Salman Khan film had failed to deliver at the box-office. It was an also-ran in the high sweepstakes involving A-listers. But that does happen sometimes, so there’s no real consternation in the film industry.
However, among the Hindi film buffs, the impression for the first four-five days was that Dabangg 3 is a hit. This is the big game: if a film has flopped and almost everyone in Bollywood knows it, why would Hindi film audiences think, it is a hit? Therein is the story of lies and deception, and manipulation of media and audiences.
It is a surprise, or for some, no surprise that news hounds for many media outlets kept writing that Dabangg 3 was doing fabulously in cinemas right from the day of release, and scaling new heights in collections — even though the film collections dropped from Friday to Saturday. In a way, producers may be behind the scheme to project the film as a hit because a favourable impression could persuade more people to troop to cinemas to catch it. And, if this meant a bit of media manipulation, who can really blame the producers? It is for the media to question itself: what was it that persuaded it to become a purveyor of falsehoods or, as the contemporary phrase goes, fake news?
For three-four days after the film’s release, the campaign to project Dabangg 3 as a hit continued unabated till it collapsed under its own weight of lies by the end of the week when it became obvious to the whole world that the film would not even touch the Rs. 150-crore mark.
Somehow, the modern world has bitten off a chunk of ethics from the present-day media persons. They are easy prey to those who want to manipulate them, and that’s what is really wrong here. When a film releases, all cards get opened on the table. A few call them as they see them; the majority, it seems, see the same cards but call them differently, or as they are asked to by whosoever. The fact that they are exposed in some days doesn’t seem to deter them. In such circumstances, what can the public do except, at times, get temporarily fooled.
