Ahead of the release of Alia Bhatt’s much-anticipated ‘Jigra’, filmmaker Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions announced last week that they are discontinuing special press screenings of all their upcoming movies, ‘to maintain the excitement of cinematic experience’.
While the production giant cited the same excitement and cinematic experience for all movie-goers as their reason, Bollywood insiders have now spilt the other possible factors behind the decision.
Press screening is a practice of filmmakers showing their work to critics a day or two in advance, to get reviews from them on Friday, usually the day of release, to attract the maximum cine-goers.
However, as per a Dharma insider, the action is taken to ‘end corruption in a section of film critics’, and let the audience be the king rather than critics.
“It is subtle statement to end corruption in a section of film critics, because when there are press shows, then monetary conversations happen for rigging the reviews. This way, review management might stop because Bollywood right now is in a severe credibility crisis,” the person shared.
Moreover, speaking to the outlet, a filmmaker noted that the decision is to fight off the ‘rate card’ of critics, who give glowing reviews for a film against a fee, ranging from 15,000 to 60,000.
“If you can buy a positive review, you can very well plant negative reviews as well. When there is so much at stake, egos are high and the market so vulnerable, you don’t want to take any chances with negativity spoiling the party,” said the anonymous filmmaker.
