Imagine you are planning to watch a movie and before booking tickets you decide that you would first check the reviews of the film and then only you will book the tickets. Upon browsing on social media or on Google, you get to know that a particular film has great reviews and based on those reviews, you booked tickets for the film. When you go and watch that film, you realise that you have been scammed and the film is cringe to watch and is just opposite to what the reviewer or critic has mentioned.
Now you start to think that there may be your fault that you didn’t understand the film, and that’s the reason behind the low numbers. But let me correct you, Most of the time you reviews are Paid and the rating are paid by production companies to boos the revenue of the film or even to make a good image of the film on Internet. So, next time before you judge a film based on the review, I would suggest you go and watch the film and then decide for yourself.
I am not saying that all reviews are paid and all critics give ratings by taking money. There are a few on Twitter and some other platforms who take a good amount of money and they give paid Positive reviews of the film. In an interview, Karan Johar had mistakenly said that he can change the perception of a flop movie into a hit movie.
Few months back, when Jigra was released, almost everyone tweeted that the film is a big super hit film, but that all was gimmick and the film was a disaster at the box office. As per a report published in M9 News, the profits of Dharma Productions have come down to 54 Lakhs in 2024, which was around 11 crores in 2023. The last few years have been terrible for Dharma, and their recent OTT release Nadaaniyan also received a poor response from critics.
Now coming to the topic again, as per the report published in M9 News, Top reviewers and New websites take 75,000 to 1 lakh for the Paid review of the film, while Small Twitter influencer charges approx 25,000 -50,000 for a Paid Positive review. The names were not revealed in reports, but you can easily decide and find out the names just by looking at the rating given by these critics for the recent releases.
Few months back, Hollywood star Vidyut Jammwal has also exposed a critic, he wrote on Twitter about a Film reviewer, who was asking for money for giving Paid reviews of his film. It is very much evident from the reviews of a few recent films that a Paid Review Mafia is running in Bollywood, which is ready to give a Positive review just for a few thousand.
Reviews don’t play a big role in deciding the overall box office number of the film, but a negative review can impact the film badly in the initial days, and on the other hand, a Positive review can increase the ticket sales by 20-25% in first 3 days of the film release.
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