Great Expectations: How 'hype' plays a decisive role in the box office
Big-budget entertainers can make millions gravitate to the theatres.
The queen is in town. The feisty Kangana Ranaut is visiting your neighbourhood theatre in and as Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi. The 19th century period drama has been in the news too. It was at the centre of a widely reported controversy. The making of the film has taken a long time, which also contributed to more than just a few headlines.
Each and every development around Manikarnika has been covered, giving rise to considerable interest — and hype.
The story of Kangana, the actress, is an unconventional one in its own right. An outspoken ‘outsider’ in nepotistic Bollywood, she has delivered woman-centric successes like Tanu Weds Manu, its sequel, Tanu Weds Manu Returns, and Queen. She was also seen in Fashion — in which hers was a National Film Award-winning supporting role.
There is, however, a significant difference between Manikarnika and her previous woman-centric successes.
Unlike, say, the sleeper-hit like Queen that was released almost stealthily, Manikarnika’s coming has been preceded by great expectations.
Two seemingly breathless questions have been doing the rounds — will the film become the biggest hit of Kangana's career? Also, will it become the biggest woman-centric film we have yet seen?
The biggest hit of Kangana’s career so far is the Hrithik Roshan-starrer Krrish 3, in which she was impressive in the supporting role of Kaya, a mutant. Krrish 3 was a blockbuster and the filmgoer’s knack of springing surprises notwithstanding, Manikarnika is unlikely to become a comparable success.
Can Manikarnika become the highest-earning woman-centric film of all time?
That’s practically impossible, if we agree that Secret Superstar, whose protagonist was the immensely talented 18-year-old actress Zaira Wasim, is a woman-centric film. Partly powered by Aamir Khan’s presence in the supporting role of a music director, the film reportedly grossed more than Rs 950 crore worldwide. Expecting Manikarnika to get anywhere close to that figure is both unrealistic and unreasonable.
Some media hype is, perhaps, inevitable in modern times — but it can be beneficial only if it doesn’t go overboard by indulging in erroneous projections and over-optimistic guesswork.
If a viewer watches a film with a set of hopes on the basis of what s/he has read or heard, the person will be pleasantly surprised if the film turns out to be better than anticipated.
A positive response leads to good word-of-mouth reports, encouraging social media posts, appreciative reviews, and ultimately, success at the box-office.
It is when the opposite happens that media hype can hurt.
‘The film can be the biggest hit of Mr X’s career.’
‘It might have the best opening weekend of the year.’
Expecting a near-perfect film, the viewer is likely to be thoroughly disappointed.
Can that impact a film’s chances at the box-office? It can — and does.
Modern-day big and even medium-budget films are like celebrity marriages. Just as the multi-crore-guzzling shaadis are covered from every angle — which includes the couple’s designer outfits, wedding destinations, guest list, food menu, budget and so on — films are placed under the microscope months before their release.
Stars turning up as guests on TV shows don’t surprise viewers any longer. Used to such ‘guest’ appearances, viewers who watch entertainment, game and comedy shows are often amused by what they see.
This is how it goes — there is some cursory chit-chat about the upcoming film in which revelatory titbits are shared with the audiences present in the show and also with the viewers at home. Each star sounds incredibly excited while talking about his/her film, which is, perhaps, natural. The leading actor, who usually hijacks the spotlight, speaks a few lines of the dialogue. There are times when a friendly actor dances along to a song from the film. Finally, the host wishes the stars all the luck in the world. There may even be a selfie or two.
The moment a highly anticipated film’s trailer is released, cinema writers spring into action. The two-minute-long snippety package is analysed threadbare, as was the case with Shankar’s sci-fi film 2.0, Vijay Krishna Acharya’s fantasy drama Thugs of Hindostan and Aanand L Rai’s romantic drama Zero in recent times.
It is not as if these trailers were universally appreciated. But the fact that they were considered worthy of independent scrutiny created hype — and expectations.
2.0 was a success — while Thugs of Hindostan and Zero flunked the acid test of the box-office. These contrasting verdicts reminded us of the need to stay away from dissecting trailers, which don’t say much about a film anyway.
The average filmgoer is famously unpredictable. Still, there have been times when the odd analyst has tried to predict a big film’s earnings on the first weekend before its release! Such guesswork has been accompanied by its share of ifs and buts, but the very fact it has been done is surprising.
In an age of dynamic social media, ruthless criticism of any film spreads like wildfire. Whenever that happens, the collections fall dramatically on the second or third day itself.
Wrong predictions can create hype, followed by embarrassment for the analyst.
Most stars are available for interviews before their films get released. Some of them, who seldom find time for the average journalist otherwise, undergo a Kafkaesque metamorphosis and suffer the media with plastic smiles plastered on their faces. Smart marketers, all of them, talk enthusiastically about their upcoming films. They insist that their film will entice the viewer because the story and treatment are unique. Such quotes not only provide fodder for lifestyle supplements in newspapers and online media, they often create an impression that a film merits a watch on the first Friday itself. That decision is the outcome of hype — whose impact lasts for a day.
The year 2018 has seen many small-budget, content-driven films becoming successful because quality has been speaking for itself more emphatically than ever before.
Big-budget entertainers can make millions gravitate to the theatres, but only if initial reports suggest that they are thoroughly enjoyable. Some films get lucky — and that’s where the viewer’s unpredictability comes into play.
Hype can be helpful if it doesn’t mislead the viewer — but if it does and the hopeful viewer feels let down, s/he cannot be blamed for killing the film on social media.