The Great Hindi Movie Con Is On

"The Biggest Opening Ever in the History of Bollywood"
"Massive Super Hit"
"*****- Taran Adarsh Gives 5 Stars to Movie"
You must have seen some or probably all of the above headlines in various magazines and newspapers in recent times. This kind of marketing has been going on since a long time in Bollywood but earlier it was something which really helped the sales at the Box Office. But in today's times, the people have really seen the truth behind these "headlines".

Yet there is still not a sure fire proof that these figures are untrue. Well, let me put it straight to you. I was sitting in a Hindi film Producer's office recently when I saw a copy of a leading Trade Magazine for the Bollywood industry. Guess what, the covers said, "Kambakkht Ishq takes the biggest Opening in the History of Bollywood". You might think what is so shocking about it? The said headline does figure as the first line of this post. Agreed, only that the day I saw it was the day when Kambakkht Ishq had not even released. YES, it was a Wednesday and the film was supposed to release on Friday. Even the paid previews were scheduled for Thursday. Wait, it's not over yet. I called one of my friends who works for the said Trade Magazine and asked him how many days does it take them to print the magazine and his reply was that the copies were delivered to them 3 days ago and it takes a minimum of 7 days to print the magazine before it is delivered to the actual readers (mainly Hindi film Producers). There's more, the same friend had delivered this copy in advance to the producer whose office I saw it the first time. So there! The headline was printed a minimum 10 days before the release of the film. Talk about positive thinking, eh?

P.S. Last heard, there were 'Superhit Headline' posters printed for almost all big budget films but it does not always work as was seen with 'Tasveer 8X10'. My source in Percept Picture Company tells me that they incurred a loss of almost 25 lakhs only on these posters, other than the 40 crores that the film lost.
Ahem! The Con is on...
P.S. Just heard...They are even planning a party for the super success of Kambakkht Ishq. The Bollywood who's who will be attending. This reminded me of the Thursday when 'Phoonk' had a trial show for invitees. I was one of them. Guese what, We were invited for a party on Monday to celebrate the success of the film over the weekend. (These filmy Bollywood PR guys are real astrolgers, I tell you)