SMS spoiling suspense of Bollywood movies...

Jay Gohil

Earlier this summer Hollywood executives blamed texting for the summer movie flops. The Independent:

In Hollywood 2003 is rapidly becoming known as the year of the failed blockbuster, and the industry now thinks it knows why

The problem, the executives say, is teenagers who instant message their friends with their verdict on new films – sometimes while they are still in the cinema watching – and so scampering carefully crafted marketing campaigns designed to lure audiences out to a big movie on it’s opening weekend.

I don’t agree with the movie executives. The bottom line is that the movies this summer haven’t been any good. Messaging, as we all know is the highest revenue generator in the mobile world and imagine numerous business models advertisers, Hollywood can come up with using messaging technologies like SMS/MMS.

Source: BBC

However, Bollywood has a different problem. Consumers are spoiling the suspense of the movie by sending SMS messages to their friends/colleagues. The Times of India has the story:

The trend, of course, started with the suspense-thriller Gupt, where fans got a strange kick out of revealing the name of the killer. That was followed by the romantic triangle Deewana Mastana, where senders were keen to let others know who bags the heroine in the end. The craze really grew with Sanjay Gupta’s Kaante, where SMSs flew thick and fast about who the traitor was. luckily, it worked in favour of the film because there were rumours that the producers themselves were sending conflicting messages to create more confusion.

But producers and distributors alike are aware of the lethal power of this little instrument in completely ruing the chances of their films. Like it happened with producer Vashu Bhagnani’s Out of Control. “On Friday itself, there were SMSs about how it was a horrible film and people should stay away. Today, when word-of-mouth publicity is so important, we can’t afford this kind of verdict,” he says.

“There is always a thrill derived in spelling out the climax of a suspensepacked film, which is what many people do. There is no doubt that the SMS trend is going to make and break several films,” views distributor Isak Moosa.

Comments

[azeem]

hi hello

[zaara khan]

the best suspense movies i have watched so far are:
anamika
gumnaam-the mystery
ajnabee
race
Ssshhhhh