Saiyaara vs SZP: PR-Forced Success or Genuine?

Discussions around Saiyaara on social media are as widespread as its buzz at the BO. The film and its star cast is being compared with recent standards of filmmaking and marketing, it is being noticed that Saiyaara did some things differently that worked out well for them.

On the PR front, there were no forced declarations of predicted success like Sitaare Zameen Par. The makers of SZP, especially Aamir had to go to multiple platforms, call his own film a superhit but Mohit Suri, Ahaan Panday or Aneet Padda did not do such PR stunts.

The people who are going to the theatres are either going because of their own anticipation of the film or the word of mouth and buzz created recently. And most importantly they are liking the film!

Saiyaara has set a milestone in terms of collections but you don’t see Ahaan boasting about its collection with social media posts. Fans feel that in his place if it was someone like Kartik Aryan, he would have flooded his social media with paid tweets, paid reviews or inflated collection charts.

Experts also brought it to notice that just like SZP was a remake of a Spanish film Campeones, 2018, so is Saiyaara a remake. Yes indeed, it is a remake of 2004 Korean film, A Moment to Remember.

But it has set a new precedent of marketing and well-earned success. It depends on genuine response and not on self-purchased claims of success – which many filmmakers and actors need to learn from.