Is Dabangg 3 affected by student unrest? Or is it rejected by audiences?

Salman Khan’s latest release Dabangg 3 is headed towards being one of his worst critical and commercial disasters 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 hours 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 box office 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 s*x 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 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.”