Diwali has always been special events for Bollywood producers due to holiday season and people's festive mood. Most movies released during this period has been able to garner lot of money in the past. I remember Gaiety Galaxy being thronged by mob, black marketers doing 10 ka 30 for even early morning shows. People standing in queue to watch biggies as if they are waiting for daily ration.
But, times changed. Technology allowed us instant online booking, growing numbers of multiplexes allowed us to watch any movie at any time without need to wait long hours. Now the same technology is being misused by the producers to influence people to watch their movies. Instead of spending in P&A before release of movies, makers are opting for corporate booking in many theaters to show their movies are running successfully. They want to cash upon FOMO of audience.
Recently, Its reported KJo spent more than 20 Crores in block bookings for Jigra to get decent weekend numbers for the movie. T Series Bhabhi even called out that in Twitter. Same Bhabhi's company is doing same thing this time with their movie Bhool Bhulaiya 3. Massive corporate bookings are being done for both Bhool Bhulaiya 3 & Singham Again 3 this time to show the inflated collections. With BOI collections crossing above 65Cr. for both movies combined it is believed by trade insiders 30-40% are attributed by corporate bookings or fake. Its like street beggars already throwing some big notes on their pot to influence other passerby's to give them similar kind of money. In the age of social media, perception has become the biggest marketing tactics by these makers. It doesn't matter how much they lose, but they need to build the perception of success to envy other makers.
The reason behind the corporate bookings are not limited to just to boast about the movie or to influence the audience, but another dark secret has been revealed- MONEY LAUNDERING. In order to launder black money, producers are now helping Underworld, Big Business Houses who sometimes are also the financiers of the movie are using this method to launder their movies. During Salman's heydays in 2009, 2010 , 2011 this same technique was used by Underworld to launder their money where every Salman movie was turned into blockbuster.
As an audience, it has become difficult for us to know is a movie is worth our time and money ?
First there are PAID preview tweets by Thursday evening itself claiming every movie to be Mughal-E-Azam. Then comes SAMOSA CRITIC reviews in online portals and Youtube who claim every crappy movie to be Mother India. Then comes tampering IMDB ratings and Google Reviews, like Martin getting 9.0/10 Rating in IMDB. Even that don't force you to watch the movie, comes FAKE BO collection numbers to give you FOMO. Still not convinced ? We will host Fake Success party by Monday itself calling whole press and social media influencers to finally force you to go to the theater and snatch your hard earned money.
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