Sudhir Kothari, 36, a monetary analyst and adviser based mostly within the southern Indian metropolis of Chennai, has ordered a particular five-kilogramme (11-pound) choco-truffle cake, garlands and booked dhol (drum) gamers. The T-shirts, badges and wristbands that he had ordered arrived in time and Rohini Silver Screens theatre has allowed him to erect a 7.4-metre (25-foot) cutout of Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan for the particular 9am “First Day, First Show” of Dunki, Khan’s new movie that releases worldwide on Thursday.
A diehard “SKRian”, as Khan’s followers name themselves, Kothari instructed Al Jazeera that in 2013, three to 4 days after “SRK sir started following me, I turned my personal Twitter account into a fan club.” Today his deal with, SRKChennaiFC, has 167,600 followers.
Kothari, who prefers the appellation “The Only Fan SRK Follows” to his personal title, and has written a guide of the identical title, was busy till late Wednesday night overseeing the preparations on the theatre, booked for SRK followers after submitting a assist letter from SRK’s manufacturing crew. After garlanding and pouring milk over Khan’s cutout, they are going to mild fireworks and dance.
Inside the 550-seater theatre, too, they are going to dance, lower the cake and submit movies on their handles with rapturous adjectives and hashtags like #DunkiAssessment, meant to tickle the curiosity of potential ticket patrons.
In all probability, Khan, who has 43.9 million followers on X and follows 74 folks, of whom 5 are fan accounts, will acknowledge the celebration movies with a candy thanks and #Dunki.
Yash Paryani, the admin of SRK Universe, Khan’s greatest fan membership which has 3.2 million followers on Facebook, tweeted that for December 21, followers are organising “1,000+ first day, first shows in 65 countries”.
Rishil Jogani, who stated he’s a part of “a small group of admins of Khan’s fan clubs that takes some big decisions”, instructed Al Jazeera that “these numbers are not 100 percent accurate,” however followers and fan golf equipment submit them as a result of “euphoria is very contagious. There is FOMO [fear of missing out] and it motivates people to book tickets.”
All the followers Al Jazeera spoke with stated that they “don’t get a penny” or any free tickets, and so they do all this out of their love for Khan, hoping for one finish outcome: “For SRK films to do wonders and for him to be happy”.
Dunki, in contrast to Khan’s two multi-star, action-packed hits launched earlier this yr, is driving totally on Khan’s shoulders and can take a look at his box-office clout. To put together for that, he has spent months advertising and marketing it in a approach that resembles the election marketing campaign fashion of India’s governing right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, the very celebration he has had a number of run-ins with previously. But it isn’t clear if all this effort will repay this time.
Hopes for a hat-trick
This yr has been a really completely satisfied one for Khan, 58, who returned to theatre screens after a four-year hiatus, a string of flops and an enormous private setback.
His two movies — Pathaan, which was launched in January this yr, and, Jawan [Soldier], in September — had been blockbuster hits, and have made it to the highest 10 highest-grossing Indian movies ever. With Dunki, trade insiders stated, Khan is hoping to attain a hat-trick.
The yr of Khan’s final box-office hit, 2015, was additionally the yr when he referred to as out rising non secular intolerance within the nation, ruffling the feathers of the governing right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). A concerted backlash adopted, his movies had been trolled and threatened with requires boycott, and it appeared that he had misplaced his box-office mojo after three flops and two that did middling enterprise.
In 2021, through the pandemic, his then-24-year-old son Aryan Khan was arrested, together with seven others, in an alleged drug bust on board a cruise ship off the Mumbai coast. The younger Khan was charged with possession, consumption and sale of unlawful substances and needed to spend about three weeks in jail. Seven months later, all the fees had been dropped.
Khan has at all times been outspoken and doesn’t scare simply. He as soon as reportedly instructed off a Mumbai mafia boss who was pressuring him to behave in a movie, “Shoot me if you want to, but I won’t work for you. I am a Pathaan,” referring to the proud, warrior clan that he’s a descendent of.
His public appearances at all times sparkled along with his signature repartee. Well-read and sharp, he gave candid interviews and would seem repeatedly on actuality and comedy TV exhibits, particularly whereas selling his movies.
But after his son was arrested and makes an attempt had been allegedly made to extort cash from Khan, he went quiet and retreated from public view. He made no assertion on his son’s arrest and the allegations in opposition to him, and stopped assembly the press or making appearances on TV exhibits.
The solely connection he continued to take care of was along with his followers, on-line and offline and immediately it is among the greatest and most energetic fan communities of a Bollywood star.
When Pathaan was launched in January, Khan’s followers internationally purchased 50,000 tickets for the primary day, first present, stated Paryani. For Jawan, they beat their very own file and purchased 85,000 tickets.
With a complete gross incomes of 21 billion rupees ($253m) on the field workplace, Khan is now being credited for reviving Bollywood, which had been struggling for a success for the previous couple of years.
“There’s a well thought out strategy behind what we have seen — Shah Rukh Khan as a phenomenon in 2023,” Girish Johar, producer and movie enterprise skilled, instructed Al Jazeera. “The films were positioned, marketed and released in such a manner that his fan base, box-office numbers and his craze increases day by day, with every film,” he stated.
Pathaan, a multi-star movie with huge Bollywood stars like Deepika Padukone, John Abraham and Salman Khan, was launched on India’s Republic Day weekend in three languages on numerous screens domestically and abroad.
Jawan, by Atlee, a number one Tamil director, had some huge southern Indian stars who’ve an enormous fan following in India and overseas.
“Hindi films used to clock [250 million to 300 million rupees; $3m-3.6m] in the south. Jawan was the first Bollywood film which has done [700 million to 800 million rupees; $8.4m-9.6m] business in the south,” Johar stated.
Khan’s followers are upbeat about Dunki, whose title refers back to the “donkey route” used to smuggle folks from the subcontinent to Europe. “The film’s content will speak for itself,” they are saying and are centered on guaranteeing that the movie, made on lower than one-third of Jawan’s funds, beats it on the field workplace.
Industry insiders are sceptical that can occur as a result of, in contrast to Khan’s two motion movies this yr, Dunki is an emotional drama about unlawful migration from Punjab to the United Kingdom, and in India today, motion scores over emotion.
2023: Shah Rukh Khan’s reinvention
In 2016, Khan, typically referred to as the “King of Bollywood”, ranked number-one with a model worth of $131.2m in Duff & Phelps’s superstar valuation report. By 2022, he had dropped to the number-10 place with a price of $55.7m in 2022.
“2023 can be defined as the year of Shah Rukh Khan’s reinvention,” PR veteran and picture guru Dilip Cherian stated, explaining how Khan took cost of his “reinvention” by doing three issues.
For one, Khan, identified for enjoying romantic leads, centered on aligning his movies with the temper of the nation by opting to play characters that had been all about “heroism, machismo and nationalism”.
“Take any of the big marquee films in the last one year — all of the films have featured men with guns on posters,” stated Rohini Ramnathan, a radio jockey who anchored Khan’s birthday celebrations on November 2 with followers.
The second factor that Khan did was to retain management of his model, picture and the narrative about him by “totally abandoning the mainstream media”, Cherian stated. That ensured he didn’t must reply any questions or lose his cool with journalists as had occurred previously and that it was all a one-way messaging push.
And third “is the surround sound that is created by his visits to religious shrines, to matches at the recently concluded Cricket World Cup, appearance at the premiere of his daughter’s film — this gives you [Khan] content to play with in the media” as movies of those outings have gone viral, and been lined by the mainstream media.
To promote Dunki, Khan, who’s the model ambassador of UAE’s Burjeel Hospital, toured Dubai lately, however has not completed any occasion in India.
He has been repeatedly posting promotional materials on social media, together with on X the place he interacts repeatedly along with his followers by way of “Ask Me Anything” classes. He principally avoids crucial questions, selecting fawning or humorous tweets to which he responds with jokes, compliments and digital hugs. Occasionally, he’ll name out abusive ones with tongue-in-cheek responses. Quite a lot of this banter finally ends up as tales on information websites.
“Replying to people one-on-one takes courage and a lot of thinking … That ownership is magical. And he’s doing this with regular frequency. That starts changing the vibe,” stated Neeraj Joshi, head of selling at Zee Studios, which produces, distributes and markets movies and TV exhibits. “It is strategic and part of a larger game, but it is also real to a great extent,” he added.
Behind this echo chamber chatter, the on-ground and on-line promotion of his movies that’s seemingly entrusted to followers, is shrewd enterprise planning backed by information, perception into shopper behaviour, a stable movie distribution and exhibition plan by a crew that features his spouse, Gauri Khan. She and Khan are administrators of Red Chillies Entertainment, a manufacturing home.
Delhi-based Narrative Research Lab, which makes use of AI to review the impression of social media conversations, analysed 310 tweets by Khan from September 16 to November 12 at Al Jazeera’s request and located that the tweet with the best variety of likes was the one during which Khan posted a photograph of Lord Ganesha with greetings on the event of a Hindu pageant.
Last week, Khan visited two Hindu shrines and movies of each went viral on social media.
The tweet that had the second-highest engagement was when Khan thanked his followers for gathering exterior his home to want him on his birthday.
“In many ways,” stated Sundeep Narwani, co-founder of Narrative Research Lab, “Shah Rukh Khan’s rebranding and film campaigns are similar to an election campaign…. They have learnt that they have to fight back.”
Khan has plotted his blockbuster return with the depth, prudence and calculation normally seen in political comebacks. And there are a number of uncanny similarities between what he’s doing and the way the BJP conducts its election campaigns, from counting on loyalists on the bottom, controlling the narrative by bypassing the mainstream media to constructing a personality-focused cult following.
‘Milk’ his fandom
In the previous couple of months, there was a surge within the variety of clips of Khan on social media, particularly Instagram. Together, they create a really particular picture of Khan as a humorous, clever and humble man, however with rockstar swagger.
There are clips of him being respectful to girls, being a caring father and husband, regaling audiences with self-deprecating humour, sharing life classes with college college students and smiling as followers bathe him with compliments and love.
What’s conspicuously lacking from this curated gallery of movies are Khan’s political statements, bouts of anger at reckless selfie-seeking followers, fights with co-stars, and alleged affairs.
“It’s a very deliberate attempt to churn out content that makes him look very cult-like,” stated Narwani.
Last month, to have a good time Khan’s birthday, his crew booked an auditorium in Bandra, residence to many high Bollywood stars in Mumbai, and invited about 300-400 members of his varied fan golf equipment after vetting them.
The occasion was organised like several Bollywood leisure gala, with an anchor, a script, and background dancers to accompany Khan on stage. He spent three to 4 hours entertaining them, speaking to them and clicking photographs. There was additionally cake, meals and items.
“This time they gave backpacks,” Paryani stated. Last yr was smartwatches.
The backpack, with #SRKDay embossed on it, had a quote from Khan printed on it: “Never stop dreaming.”
“Shah Rukh Khan speaks to the aspirational essence that is inside every Indian,” stated Kenneth Hopkins, the founding father of BollyCon, a popular culture conference in Mumbai.
“Khan’s appeal lies in the story he tells — I came to Mumbai with nothing and look at me today, I own the industry … If his fans are buying into his brand and brand sentiment of aspiration, then you also have to express hubris … hubris against injustice, the system,” stated Hopkins and added, “At the end of the day, Shah Rukh Khan is a baniya [an Indian trading community] … I don’t mean to be offensive, but he will see how to milk that … [for] conversion into ticket sales.”
While Pathaan was a very patriotic movie, Jawan was political and private, with Khan enjoying a double function of a father and son.
When the movie’s trailer was launched, all consideration was on one dialogue that was akin to the emotion famously expressed by Liam Neeson within the 2008 movie, Taken: “Bete pe jane se pehle baap se baat kar [Talk to me before you touch my son].”
“What happened to his family was so, so brutal. And all of us just wanted him to win … His winning was like a personal triumph for everybody. It felt like the world is alright,” Ramnathan stated.
If Dunki breaks box-office information, it’ll be a contented finish to yr for Bollywood, courtesy Khan. It it doesn’t, it gained’t matter a lot as a result of for Khan a battle had been fought and gained.
From disapproval to admiration
Dunki is about within the north Indian state of Punjab the place many houses have overhead water tanks formed like planes, American milk vehicles, and even the Statue of Liberty. They signify the place a member of the family has migrated to.
In the movie, made by Rajkumar Hirani, one in every of India’s main administrators, Khan performs the lead character, Hardy, who takes his 4 pals to London by way of the unlawful and treacherous “donkey route”. Indians make up the world’s greatest diaspora inhabitants of about 17.9 million and the movie’s theme appeals to Indians at residence and overseas.
Hirani is taken into account infallible on the field workplace and has his personal fan following. But Dunki’s benefit and drawback is Hirani.
In 2014, Hirani directed PK, starring Aamir Khan as an alien who lands in India and begins to query the blind religion and devotion to non secular gurus. The movie has remained one of many highest-grossing movies, however is dredged up time and again by right-wing trolls to label him as anti-national and name for a boycott of his movies.
In 2019, Hirani was accused by a lady who had labored with him of sexual assault and abuse over a six-month interval. Hirani denied the allegations, however the girl stands by her account. Dunki is his first movie since then.
The sexual harassment case in opposition to Hirani has not the precise wing as a result of a number of BJP leaders have been accused of comparable abuse. But each few days there’s a name on X to boycott Hirani and Dunki over PK.
According to Narrative Lab’s evaluation, on November 2, when Khan tweeted the primary promotional video of Dunki, he tagged Hirani. About 7 p.c of the feedback the tweet acquired had been unfavourable.
Khan tweeted 4 extra promotional movies over 10 days, however didn’t tag or point out Hirani.
“The disapproval that we had seen in comments around the November 2 tweet disappeared by the fifth tweet,” Narwani stated.
Al Jazeera reached out to Red Chillies to ask if on-line interplay between Khan and Hirani was being prevented to minimise any unfavourable chatter. They declined to reply.
“The right wing needs some rationale, some story for a boycott call to stick. And Shah Rukh Khan, by not talking, is not giving them anything,” Narwani stated.
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/12/20/reclaiming-bollywood-shah-rukh-khan-style?traffic_source=rss
