If social media can be used to promote a film—and the net is now a vital promotional tool—then the same can be used to massacre a film too, as Sajid Khan must have discovered last week.
Earlier, just a handful of newspaper critics used to express their opinions, now anybody with a Facebook or Twitter account can vent, especially if they are unhappy with a film.
‘Humshakals’ was marketed rather aggressively, with the three male leads (Saif Ali Khan, Ritiesh Deshmukh and Ram Kapoor) going all out to sell their triple roles. When the film came out within moments, the online (later offline too) massacre commenced.
The film apparently made a decent amount of money over the opening weekend, a lot of people actually going to see it to see just how bad it was. The tweets about the film were way funnier than the lame gags in it.
Here are a few samples:
The Bad Doctor?
Humshakals gets released today - if God does not destroy the world today, you can safely presume either that there’s no God or He’s now dead
Sudhish Kamath:
The film to see this week especially if you have a brain... and a heart: With You, Without You. The rest of you deserve Humshakals.
Atul Khatri:
Saw ‘Humshakals‘ last evening. Paid Rs. 500 for my ticket and spent 3 hours. Now I want Rs. 1500/= refund and 9 hours of my life back !
Raghuvendra Singh:
After Himmatwala, now Sajid Khan will make fun of #Humshakals in his next film. Haha!
Sachin Kalbag:
I get the feeling that Sajid Khan made Humshakals only so that he trends on Twitter.
Ra Bies:
Humshakals is such a bad movie that people who haven’t even watched it are demanding their money back
Now waiting for Humshakals to appear on TV, so that I can switch it off
Karthik Kumar:
Poor Sajid Khan... Everyone abusing his latest ‘release’ as if they all had higher expectations from him. U watched it? Why :) #Humshakals
Jose Covaco:
Humshakals releases. Train fares triple. This can’t be a coincidence. The Government is trying to save the people.
Shree:
If you’re planning to watch Humshakals, remember that everyone is not Schumacher to recover from coma.
Sajid Khan is going down in history as the most reviled filmmaker after Ram Gopal Varma (after his slaughtering of Sholay). Okay, so the film made money, fine, but if a filmmaker is honest, wouldn’t he (or she) admit that admiration of the public also counts? Critics may not matter, but in this case, the public has spoken too, and Sajid Khan would ignore this at his peril.