Video: Sunny Deol attended the screening of Gadar 2 organised by the Indian High Commission, London
London, September 8, 2023: Sunny Deol’s Gadar 2, which released in theatres on August 11, is about to secure its place as the second-highest-grossing Hindi film ever. Bollywood trade analyst Taran Adarsh has predicted that the film will achieve this milestone “Today” (Friday, September 8, 2023), underscoring the excitement surrounding its box office performance. In its fourth week, Gadar 2 continued to shine, raking in around ₹28 crore, solidifying its status as a box office juggernaut.
Despite ‘Gadar 2’ topping domestic collections with over ₹500 crores, trade pundits argue it could have earned much more globally with strategic promotion in foreign territories. The Bollywood blockbuster had such poor marketing in the UK that Sunny Deol had to personally request the Indian High Commission in London to arrange a special screening to get some support for the film.
In comparison, big-banner titles like ‘Pathaan’ and ‘Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani’ witnessed extensive, unconstrained marketing campaigns tailored for international audiences by their producers.
Same was seen for Shah Rukh Khan’s latest release Jawan. The trailer of the film blared on big screens in public places like the Madison Square Garden in New York City and worldclass shopping malls like Westfield in London.
Photo: ‘Jawan’ trailers ran on big screens in London malls
Taran Adarsh assessed that had ‘Gadar 2’ released solo, sans competition, its lifetime earnings could have exceeded ₹650 crores within India itself.
However, the film’s overseas distributor Zee Studios seemingly adopted a rather conservative external promotional strategy, keeping it low-key outside domestic shores. One prominent theory doing the rounds suggests that this restrained approach stems from apprehension about highlighting the film’s nationalist theme and anti-Pakistan angle among advertisers and channels hailing from that very nation across foreign markets, especially the lucrative UK territory.
According to media marketing experts in the UK, the exponential rise of UK-based Pakistani media outlets, heavily bankrolled through Islamic charity programs has markedly expanded their sphere of influence compared to Indian broadcasters in the same region.
As per estimates, there exist over 20 Pakistani news and entertainment channels now in the UK alone, exercising significantly greater clout versus around 15 top Indian channels available on British airwaves.
A leading executive at an Indian entertainment channel operating in the UK confessed that Pakistani and Bangladeshi networks can systematically generate sizable profits through Islamic charity programs which often remains outside the perview of the regulatory bodies. Indian media conglomerates in the UK, on the other hand, are mostly owned by big corporate houses structurally designed to avoid any flouting of norms.
Zee Studios possibly wanted to avoid stirring up a potential hornet’s nest by overtly promoting a film like ‘Gadar 2’ with an unabashedly chest-thumping nationalist narrative that could risk offending the influential lobby of British Pakistani advertisers and outlets.
Meanwhile, Pakistani films like ‘Waar’ regularly peddle anti-India narratives on foreign shores explicitly aimed at radicalising British Pakistanis against India. This compounds the unique challenges and socio-political constraints faced by Indian content creators before effectively penetrating the overseas market.
Even a movie like ‘The Kashmir Files’, which also struck a nationalistic chord, required active grassroots intervention from producer Vivek Agnihotri to kickstart promotions on London’s tube stations after initial dormancy and reluctance from studio marketing departments.
However, movies that avoid controversial themes and don’t get involved in political issues tend to benefit from unrestricted promotional campaigns in foreign markets. For instance, Karan Johar’s ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’ faced explicit threats from right-wing Indian groups for casting a well-known Pakistani actor but still went on to earn handsomely abroad. The film managed to attract reasonable viewership and revenue from even the Pakistani and wider Muslim diaspora.
Ultimately, the onus lies with leading Indian studios, producers, and directors to unanimously back stories that stay true to our core artistic and ethical values regardless of others’ hidden agendas. Come what may, excellence deserves wholehearted support on the merits of its quality, not political palatability.
As the entertainment industry of the world’s largest democracy and a thriving economy, Bollywood must consolidate its might to collectively resist undue external pressures, intimidation tactics, and coercive finite groups. Being overly cautious and employing self-censorship about India-centric narratives and perspectives underestimates the maturity and discretion of global audiences at large.
The prudent path forward is to craft promotion campaigns that strike a fine balance projecting the nuanced artistic and cinematic merit of films beyond partisanship and jingoism. The Indian media fraternity must recognize that the UK’s cultural outlook cannot be held hostage to the heckling of a tiny radical fringe.