Is Dabangg Affected By Student Unrest. Or Is It Rejected By Audiences?

Salman Khan’s latest release Dabangg 3 is  headed towwards being one  of his worst critical and  commercial  disaster  in  recent times.And this includes  disasters Tubelight and Race 3.Salman’s last  bonafide  hit was Bajrangi Bhaijaan  in 2015.  Thereafter  all his  films have underperformed to varying  degrees.

Dabangg 3 has done less business  over its first weekend than all of Salman’s recent  releases.

In fact the film’s  2 hour 40 minutes playing time  was reduced by ten minutes on Day 2. A  sure sign of  desperate efforts  to  save  a  faltering film.

You may not  buy this  explanation. But  trade experts feel  Dabangg 3 has  shown lower  boxoffice collections than  Part 1 and Part 2  because of the current students’ agitation across  the nation. This is like blaming the  falling sensex on the lack of sex in stock-brokers’ lives.

Experts feel, since Salman’s  viewership-demography  consists  largely of  the young and since the young of  the nation(all  of them??!!) are  taken up with more important issues the collection  of Dabangg 3 have suffered. A more likely explanation for the weak opening is the super-weak  writing and execution.However  we will let that be.

 Trade analyst  Atul Mohan  opines, “The students’ unrest  has affected the movie for sure. In numbers  the losses would be in the range of 25-30%. If things don’t calm down soon, then it would be bad for the film. But at the same time if we look into economics, the film has booked table profit for all concerned,  thanks to ancillary sales. The movie was already in plus before release.”

Another  trade insider Girish Johar agrees with  Atul Mohan.  “Earlier I was expecting around 10% losses  due to   the  unrest.But as numbers flow in I guesstimate the dent to be around 20% in all the cities as the protests were been held  nationwide. It’s quite obvious as students are the ones who mostly throng the theatres for  a FIRST DAY FIRST SHOW euphoria of Salman’s heroics.But since many of them were protesting for an important issue,film watching took a back seat for them.”

However  trade guru Amod Mehra  tells  it like it is. “According to me the collections are bad as the film failed to create any buzz.Blaming the nationwide unrest is just a lane excuse.No matter what  political scenario, good films do well.”