This is no national secret. Promotions – or publicity campaigns – have become as essential to the Bollywood movies as raw stock, camera and editing consoles. No pre-release buzz, no super or even duper hit.

It’s not enough to spend the last rupee on finessing a product. Anyone aspiring towards filmmaking must now also think creatively about the mega-bucks involved in snowing the nation into a state of hyper-anxiety. Expectedly, this phenomenon was initiated in Hollywood by Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993). The special-effects dinosaur fantasy cost $63 million and a whopping $65 million to publicise.
Followed exclusive ‘first looks’ at the posters and trailers of movies, big or small. Now as you know, whenever Hollywood catches a cold, Bollywood sneezes. ‘Sneak peaks’ at the posters and trailers are as vital for the Rowdy Rathore as they are for the relatively leaner-budgeted Gangs of Wasseypur, Ferrari ki Sawari and Paan Singh Tomar. So are yippee-we-did it success parties which are dutifully featured in the entertainment sections of the dailies. The pop-the-champagne shebangs pay off, attracting cushier sales for television premieres, DVD rights and what-snore-you.
Whoa, am I getting sombre and moralistic about the Youtube Generation publicityboom? Haven’t such ruses always been a part of the showbiz scene? Yes for sure but in a miniscule way, dependent on the traditional scraping-and-bowing PRO who’d offer exclusive photos — rather than bulldoze — the various publications. And once in a very cheesy moon, omigawd stories were concocted like the one about Hema Malini rejecting Jeetendra’s proposal of marriage on the eve of the release of Dulhan (1974). Bride! Marriage! Rejection! Didn’t work, readers could see through the planted story.
Today, even the sort who’s quite immune to publicity tricks, can’t tell the differencebetween fact and fiction. Like I don’t know if Pooja Bhatt actually blew her top at porn star Sunny Leone towards the end of the shoot of Jism 2. And why should this lung-blast should go viral? Not in the Kolaveri league at all but the ‘news’ about the face-off stormed the internet and the chit-chat hours on satellite channels. Curiously, a similar altercation had been reported five years between Pooja Bhatt and Muzammil Ibrahim on the sets of Dhoka. Ms Bhatt, in her capacity as a director, does lose her cool with her actors, close to her films’ release. Well-timed!
Some months ago, in the quest of inciting a buzz, a selectively edited promo from The Hate Story showed theatre actor Mohan Kapoor heavy-breathing over a near-nakedwoman and some more. Horrified, he told the producers that it was unethical to use a scene, out of context, making him out to be a sexual pervert. After day of sufficient rotation, the excerpt was pulled out from Youtube.
And there’s the case of Peecee aka Priyanka Chopra stealing the show at Karan Johar’s 40th birthday splash, the big daddy of all B-town parties. Johar had tweeted about her when she made some uncharitable remarks about star housewives. Bets were on: would she be invited? Or not? She was. Big deal! But the paparazzi almost broke into a riot when Peeceeji fetched up well past the midnight hour. That’s drama.
Of late, there has been a sane quote from Ajay Devgn though. “Success parties are fake”, he said, adding that some of the trade people even down their sorrows in drinks because of the losses faced in releasing the assumed ‘super hit.’ Just another day, perhaps, in a faux paradise.