My Name is Khan opened with a bang, but it turned out to be a dud '100 wala ladi', since the film fizzled in the first week and absolutely bombed in the second week.
Whether it was staged or not, there is no doubt that MNIK gained publicity what with Shahrukh Khan's episode at the Newark airport. But what about the Shiv Sena incident? Why did Bal Thackeray and his goons stop trashing the film on the second day of release? Why aren't the 'Sainiks' making a fuss about banning the film anymore? The Sena have a problem with King Khan siding with Pakistani cricketers, how did they lose interest in burning effigies of Khan as soon as the film released? It would be wrong to point fingers at SRK, especially since the man even asked the folks who accused him using the SS for publicity to 'shut up'. But these are facts, and they cannot be ignored. And we all know how Bollywood is slowly learning from Hollywood - by cooking up a controversy before the release, making all the invested dough back in the opening weekend, before enjoying the profits the following week.
Hollywood is notorious for publicising via controversies - Mel Gibson was deemed an Anti Semite before Passion of the Christ released. The Vatican had a problem with 'The Da Vinci Code'. Cut to 2009, and Hollywood honchos began cashing in on 'Twilight' co-stars Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, who were made to appear as if they share an off screen relationship. It was an elaborate marketing strategy, to 'leak a rumour' regarding their off screen romance, showing their pics at restaurants holding hands, and finally 'unveiling their true love for each other' one day before 'New Moon' released. Twi-hards still haven't woken up from the brain wash.
Aamir Khan's '3 Idiots' opened with the Chetan Bhagat controversy, when the author claimed that his name had not been credited properly. He was right, the man's name appeared during the end credits when people quit looking at the screen and leave the theater. After a few days of verbal volleys between Bhagat and the filmmakers, the author apologised to Aamir Khan for some strange reason. Why did Bhagat apologise to Aamir - wasn't he fighting for writers' rights in Bollywood? His victory against the filmmakers would have brought a revolution in Bollywood, and poor screenwriters would have earned their rights. Nothing happened, apart from '3 Idiots' raking in more moolah than one can imagine. The controversy died down as abruptly as it had begun.
Salman Khan's 'Veer' opened with a controversy as well, but the film was so terrible nobody bothered watching it. Cut to February, 'My Name is Khan', 'Shahrukh' and 'Shiv Sena' were the only things that people could talk about. Tabloids were rife with the thumb wrestling between the Sena and SRK, the banning of the film in Maharashtra and pictures of Sena activists torching SRK's posters. SRK began Tweeting for hours on end, regarding his film and even himself. The film was indeed banned in most part of the state on the first day. The second day was a mixed bag as some theaters screened the film, but on the third day My Name is Khan was playing everywhere, to packed houses. Some said that audiences at theaters on the first day was a sign of the 'victory of unity over the Shiv Sena'. A large number of police personnel were deployed at multiplexes in Maharashtra to counter attacks by the Sena. Then some reported the 'victory of police over the Sena'. Pity the police could not avert that bomb blast at the German Bakery in Pune.
So what happened on the third day? For one, SRK almost stopped Tweeting. The Shiv Sainiks were nowhere to be seen. There was no word from Bal Thackeray, and even to this day the Sena's mouthpiece 'Saamna' has said nothing about the film. Why the sudden lack of motivation in the Sainiks? What prompted them to stop bothering about My Name is Khan? Did Bal Thackeray receive a huge bundle? Talking of payoffs, there was an article that alleged that SRK paid 6 crores to the Shiv Sena to publicise My Name is Khan, (an incriminating picture from the article has been posted below).
A week after the film's release Shahrukh announced that he had severed ties with Lux Cozi innerwear, the company which was supposed to be a major sponsor of the Kolkata Knight Riders for IPL 3. There were a few protests against Shahrukh Khan for endorsing Lux Cozi, whose owner Ashok Todi was accused of murdering Rizwanur Rahman, who had married his daughter Priyanka Todi against his wishes. Rizwan Khan's team being sponsored by Rizwanur's murderers sounded sacrilegious, and SRK was forced to back down and remove 'Lux Cozi' from the team's shirts. Of course Lux has not been given the boot, there will be tons of merchandise sold off the field with the Knight Riders' name.
In the film 'Luck By Chance' Dimple's character hated the word 'Bollywood'. How long will the Hindi Film Industry live on controversies? Is there no space for Gandhigiri in the modern world? Unlike Twi-hards, film viewers in India are waking up from the hypnosis, a few years from now only quality cinema would make money, run-of-the-mill masala would cease to find audiences - My Name is Khan's underwhelming performance at the Indian Box Office is proof of that. '3 Idiots' was not a masterpiece, it was just high quality cinema, finely polished Bollywood masala, a tad better than the indecisive, mentally challenged, needlessly melodramatic Karan Johar film. Here's to 2012 when films like 'No Smoking', 'Gulaal' and 'Kanchivaram' rule the box office without creating annoying controversies.
Source: http://www.india.com/movies/movies/did-srk-pay-shiv-sena-publicise-my-name-khan_7255
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