CAN ONE TWEET/SMS/STATUS UPDATE DECIDE THE FATE OF A FILM?
An article in The Times of India on Monday caught my eye. The title read, “Do Tweets, SMSes harm a film?”! The writer posted some tweets poking fun at Raavan being floated on the day of its release and that how such tweets or messages can make a dent into a film’s business. There was a quote of Sajid Nadiadwala who didn’t organize for a press show for his film Housefull. In his words, “Had I shown the film to people before release, I am sure business would have been affected by 15% as there are some people always working against you” and further adding that people get influenced easily!
Reading such stuff, I was wondering…how much can a single review/tweet/status update on Facebook affect a film? Do such things can really change people’s decision regarding films to/not to see? To an extent, I feel! People generally get second thoughts about a particular film they want to see after their favourite critic denounces it. Similarly, a tweet/status update by a friend or maybe a critic can also cause damage. But at the same time, I have noticed that if the junta gives thumbs up to a film, no critic can save that film from becoming a hit! In the past, there have been several films like No Entry, Bhool Bhulaiyaa, Welcome etc which were criticized by so many critics and yet they went on to become blockbusters!
Also, if a viewer is really very excited for a film, he/she is going to see it irrespective of the response it gets. Many of my friends and acquaintances went to see Raavan inspite of reading all negative reviews. Why? Because they simply WANTED to see it! Similarly, I know so many astrology freaks that damned the negative reviews and went to catch What’s Your Raashee inspite knowing that the film’s duriation of 200 minutes could have bored them to death! How do you explain this? A simple reason can be that the film, through its promos or star cast/crew, plot, songs, theme etc managed to arouse very high curiosity. Mostly, this can be done by a nice promotion strategy which unfortunately is not undertaken by many of our films!
But there are some exceptions too! There was a considerable excitement forKites prior to its release. But many of its die-hard fans didn’t go to see the film after bad reports started pouring in! Maybe they had the foresight and knew that the film will be premiering onTV within a month of its release!
Whatever one may say, the fact is that one should not overestimate the power of twitter and facebook in deciding the fate of the film. It can influence but if your film is nice, people have liked it and there’s some excitement for it, no power in the world can stop it from achieving commercial success! Even if Nadiadwala had organized Housefull’s press show and the critics had given it thumbs down, the film still would have been a hit simply because people loved it! As they say, ye public hai sab jaanti hai!
