Bollywood has pinned its hopes on Karan Johar’s romantic family drama, Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahaani, starring Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt. The film will be released this Friday.
Ahead of its release, renowned brands have come forward to buy 50,000 tickets. Brands like Kajaria and Pepsi are partnering with major cinema chains to treat their consumers to free tickets over the opening weekend. Additionally, the film will be screened for college students for free.
Similar tactics were used in recent times in Bollywood for films like Adipurush and Shehzada. For Adipurush, Ranbir Kapoor and other celebs bought 10,000 tickets each. For Shehzada, there was a buy one, get one offer for tickets.
Last week’s Hollywood releases, Oppenheimer and Barbie, did fantastic business despite the high average ticket price. Bollywood’s very own Pathaan turned out to be a huge blockbuster without corporate bookings. That means the audience is ready to come to theaters if the content is exciting.
Instead of making good and entertaining films, Bollywood is stooping to self-buying tickets or offering tickets for cheap or even for free. These self made practices are becoming deadlier by the day and are bound to destroy the economics of the Bollywood industry in the long run.
When the ticket-buying audience does not want to come, it does not matter, as they will not come no matter what. These fraudulent corporate bookings of tickets just to create a false perception of the film being a hit are suicidal and will spell doom for Bollywood.
