In October 2024, when director-producer Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions was gearing up nervously for the release of its Hindi-language film Jigra [Courage] in theatres, few knew that the 45-year-old production house, which has made some of India’s most loved films, had been struggling to survive.

Since 2019, most of Dharma’s films had not done well, and only one of the four films they released in theatres in 2024 had recovered some money.

Dharma’s net profits had plummeted, from $1.2m in fiscal year 2023 to $68,135 a year later. Its managers and directors had reportedly not been paid for months. And Johar, 52, who had inherited the production house after his father’s death in 2004, was in talks to sell 50 percent stake.

Jigra, a thriller set in Thailand, had been made at a cost of 800 million rupees ($9.2m) and starred Alia Bhatt, one of Bollywood’s leading actresses who had also come on board as a co-producer. There were murmurs within Dharma and the film trade that the movie wasn’t likely to be a commercial success.

Dharma did its best to maintain the illusion that Jigra was going to be a hit. A few weeks before its release, it put out the film’s poster and trailer. On its social media handles it claimed that the trailer got more than 40 million views in 24 hours and shared fans’ excited reactions: “Goosebumps all over,” said one. “Absolute banger,” chirped another.

But most of these comments were from content creators and people connected with the movie or its stars.

On October 7, four days before the film’s release, Johar issued a statement to “Dear members of the media”, saying that henceforth Dharma would not hold pre-release screenings of their films, typically held for critics a day or two before a film’s release.

That was a big blow to the growing legions of YouTubers, vloggers and influencers who have taken to reviewing films on social media. Johar was basically telling them that he was no longer going to pay for positive reviews.

“It is an open secret in the film industry that 70-80 percent of the reviews are paid reviews,” a senior executive with Yash Raj Films (YRF), Bollywood’s venerable production house known for hits like Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity. “Paid reviews are very much a part of this business as any other business,” he added.

Al Jazeera spoke with more than 20 film professionals, critics, PR executives and social media reviewers who confirmed that paying for puffery and hype is the norm in Bollywood and struggled to name films that had not paid for reviews.

Most agreed that reviews can’t turn duds into hits, but said that reviews can boost or shrink a film’s business by 10-15 percent in the first week, especially now when reviews go viral before a film’s release.

Producers and actors pay for positive reviews in the hope that they will create a word-of-mouth effect – film marketing’s Holy Grail – and carry the movie in the first week.

“There’s a menu card, literally. You pick what you want, and there’s a rate for everything,” the YRF executive said, pointing out that his was probably the only production house that didn’t do pre-release screenings and does not pay for reviews.

Al Jazeera accessed some “rate cards” sent to producers and filmmakers by the PR and marketing firms engaged to handle a film’s publicity. These include the fees charged by some of India’s top news organisations, entertainment portals, trade analysts, social media reviewers and content creators. Most offer a range of services and package deals for positive articles and social media posts.

Deals can be struck for live tweeting about a film from the cinema hall on the day of its release, giving it a high star rating, and a glowing review and making it trend on social media with hashtags and memes. Producers can also opt for three to six-month-long packages to create a buzz about a film before and after its release. In these deals, everything – from the film’s poster, its trailer, songs, and box office predictions – gets talked up and is made to trend on social media.

The deals for paid articles with established media organisations, some entertainment portals and a few well-known trade analysts are formal, struck in advance and can cost anywhere between five million rupees ($57,741) to 50 million rupees ($577,410). Deals with established media organisations don’t usually include film reviews, but there is often a softening of tone in the bad ones when deals are struck. Or as everyone in Bollywood loves to say: “Negativity was managed.”

Deals with influencers and some individual critics are often cash-only and are negotiated around film previews. The lower the excitement about a film, the higher their price.

But lately, some cracks have started to appear in that business model.

It’s ‘complete extortion’

So far, production houses have chased social media critics and influencers, flown them to Mumbai for previews, put them up in hotels, gifted them iPhones and paid them to write positive reviews.

“But more and more people spring up every week. And now it’s got to a point that if you don’t give money to some of these guys, they will start slamming your film. It’s complete extortion,” a film director said.

That was the experience for Dharma Productions as well. With its finances already bleeding, the harassment and extra costs had begun to pinch, and the company decided that it was time to put a stop to it, a source close to Dharma told Al Jazeera.

Jigra was released on October 11 to mostly negative reviews and trolling. While Dharma Productions eschewed the influencers, it maintained its deals with the established media publications. On its social media handles, it publicised posters with high star ratings from those media houses and reviewers, the very posters that, Johar has admitted in public, are kept ready before a film’s release.

Among the few positive social media reviews, one stood out. It wasn’t just glowing but was from someone not typically associated with Bollywood.

CricCrazyJohns, a cricket influencer handle with more than 600,000 followers on X, charges up to 30,000 rupees per tweet. It’s run by a young southern Indian, who doesn’t understand much Hindi, yet he is occasionally engaged by Bollywood to tweet about films and actors’ performances. The text is usually provided to him.

On October 11, he tweeted: “Jigra is a game-changer. Alia Bhatt shines … this emotional rollercoaster is a must-watch.”

Jigra is a game-changer.

Alia Bhatt shines as the protective sister, delivering a stellar performance.

Vedang’s powerful debut and a strong supporting cast, this emotional rollercoaster is a must-watch. 🌟🌟🌟🌟 #Jigra

— Johns. (@CricCrazyJohns) October 11, 2024

Jigra’s producers even bought theatre tickets to create the impression that people were flocking to cinemas. “But the total business was so small that it didn’t really make a difference,” Raj Bansal, a veteran film distributor, told Al Jazeera.

Jigra flopped, barely recovering one-third of its cost. Some put its dismal performance down to the fact that it was a dreary film. But for others, Jigra’s fate reinforced their belief that Bollywood was now hostage to the Frankenstein it had created.

“This is karma calling,” Girish Johar, a producer and trade analyst, told Al Jazeera. “These very production houses nurtured, pampered and patronised these so-called film critics – these people with no relevance, no experience,” he said.

Karan Johar did not respond to a detailed questionnaire from Al Jazeera.

Bollywood has been struggling for the past six to seven years as most of its ambitious, big-budget films have flopped. The top-grossing films in that period came from Southern production houses and directors. But instead of putting its resources into making better films, Bollywood has been investing in creating the illusion that all is well.

“A lot of people who want perception to be managed do these kinds of things. The entire ecosystem makes money, not that it changes a film’s fortunes in terms of the box office,” the senior YRF executive cited above said. “YRF doesn’t do that [pay for reviews] because then good money chases bad money. [And] once you play that game, you are in that game.”

About two weeks after Jigra’s release, Karan Johar sold a 50 percent stake in Dharma Productions to Adar Poonawalla, chief executive of Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, for 10 billion rupees ($116m). Several other production houses in Bollywood are also looking to sell stakes in their companies to raise funds.

Bollywood and the changing business of films

India, the world’s second-oldest film industry, is also the world’s biggest producer of films. It generates a gross revenue of nearly 200 billion rupees ($2.2bn) from the 1,700-1,800 films it produces every year in about 20 languages. Only a 10th of these are Bollywood films. Yet it is Bollywood’s over-the-top melodramas that don’t just contribute the largest share of revenue but have a fanatical fan base across the world, making it India’s formidable soft power.

Based in Mumbai – India’s financial capital that gets its ‘city of dreams’ epithet from the Hindi language film industry – Bollywood spawned an ancillary universe of film magazines, journalists, photographers, public relations and marketing firms that glamorise showbiz and feed Indians’ insatiable curiosity about films and film stars.

Throughout the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, when glossy film magazines dominated newsstands, Bollywood movies would run in large single-screen theatres for months, their success measured in silver and golden jubilees (25 and 50 weeks, respectively).

But behind the razzle-dazzle of big stars, blockbuster hits and overnight stardom, lurked insecurities, fragile egos, jealousies and rivalries. Bollywood always had camps and cliques, and gossip swirled occasionally about money changing hands. But in those days, it was restricted to actors, directors and producers handing envelopes with petty cash to lowly-paid film journalists as a “convenience fee” to nudge for better coverage.

This changed in the early 2000s.

In 2003, two years after the Indian government granted “industry” status to the film industry, making way for institutional money, The Times of India, one of the world’s largest circulated English-language daily newspapers, launched MediaNet, which began selling newspaper stories on films, film stars, fashion, lifestyle and events for a price.

This paid news model – at a time when multiplexes were replacing single-screen theatres, and the window for films to recover money was becoming smaller – proved lucrative. Soon, several other newspapers had their own versions of MediaNet.

“It became very organised. In several newspapers, magazines and their online digital avatars, you could not get [any write-up related to a movie] 10-20 days before and after a film’s release,” unless you paid for it, said a film publicist who, like many quoted in this article, requested anonymity.

Paid articles in some of India’s top publications usually cost 20 to 50 percent more than what the publication would charge for an advertisement. Publications are required to differentiate paid stories from regular news by adding disclaimers and distinct formatting to avoid misleading readers. But the disclaimers are not always obvious, especially when it’s about entertainment and Bollywood news.

Last year, Bollywood released 170-180 films, including many big-budget ones with its top stars. Most films arrived with a lot of hype and gushy reviews. But only four – all horror films – were bonafide hits.

“If Stree 2, Munjya, Shaitan and Bhool Bhulaiya 3 had not worked, 2024 would have been a year of mourning,” Sanjay Mehta, a film exhibitor and distributor, told Al Jazeera.

The dilemma for Bollywood is that while the cost of making films has increased, the avenues to recover the money have shrunk.

About 60 percent of a film’s revenue comes from domestic theatres. The fate of a movie is sealed in the first week and that’s the window to recover their money.

Streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon, Disney and others, which used to buy films based on their star cast or director, changed that system in 2024 after Bollywood films they had bought for large sums ended up as box office duds.

“Streamers now buy digital rights after a film releases theatrically. So when your film bombs, it’s not just the theatrical business that is affected, but also the amount of money that you get from streamers. The stakes have become much higher for a film to perform well in its first weekend,” a senior film critic told Al Jazeera.

Komal Nahata, a veteran film trade analyst and critic, says he charges 60,000 rupees to 70,000 rupees ($700-$800) for one social media post. “If it’s a bulk deal for a film’s promotion, say a package of 14-15 posts, then the charge can range from 500,000 rupees to 700,000 rupees ($6,000-$8,000),” he told Al Jazeera.

Nahata inherited Film Information, a trade magazine, from his father, but shut down the print edition and went digital just before COVID hit the world. Earlier, he says, he used to charge for advertisements and now he charges for social media posts that he refers to as “advertising”, differentiating them in theory from his other posts. But in appearance, there is nothing that distinguishes his paid posts from the unpaid ones that, he claims, are “unbiased”.

“You may have spent [5 million rupees] on advertising, but if the film is not good, I will write that it is not good … Reviews, whether good, bad or ugly, are a service to my readers,” he said and added that he was paid to tweet about Jigra, but called it “depressing and monotonous” in his review.

“But many PR agencies speak with these so-called trade analysts and reviewers. There is a tacit understanding. …They will give the film 4 stars, 4.5 stars and the packet [of cash] reaches them. It’s disgusting,” Nahata said.

Al Jazeera sent questionnaires to all the 31 news organisations, social media influencers, trade analysts, critics, and entertainment portals listed in the rate cards we reviewed. Only two responded.

The Economic Times, India’s leading business newspaper, said, “As part of the Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd [BCCL] group, which owns multiple publications catering to various reader segments, certain other publications and supplements may carry advertorials, entertainment industry-related content, and promotional features. However, the specific publication you have mentioned – The Economic Times – does not carry any paid features as alleged in your email.”

Entrepreneur India, a business magazine, said that it does not charge celebrities or their agencies for stories.

This journalist has been a film critic for about 15 years and was approached once by a PR firm to “collaborate” on a film’s review and was asked what it would cost them for the review.

Feeding this ‘monster’

“Salman Khan is saying that his film #Tiger3 is [a] flop because of me. If I die in any circumstances in police station or in jail, you all should know that it’s murder,” Kamaal R Khan, a self-styled film trade analyst and critic, tweeted on December 25, 2023, when he was arrested at the Mumbai airport in a defamation case.

It wasn’t his first arrest, nor the first defamation case against him.

In 2008, Khan, better known by his initials KRK, wrote, produced and starred in Deshdrohi (Traitor), one of the worst Bollywood films. About two years later, he abandoned acting to become a Bollywood troll on social media.

KRK, who flits between Dubai and Mumbai, would routinely abuse actors, calling some “oldies”, drug addicts, “two-rupee people” [worthless], and trash films in the most obnoxious terms to his more than 11 million followers.

In October 2016, two big films were to be released in the much coveted Diwali weekend – Ae Dil Hai Mushkil (O Heart, It Is Difficult), produced and directed by Karan Johar, and Shivaay, produced, directed by and starring Ajay Devgn.

About a month before the films released, Devgn shared an audio clip of a conversation in which KRK spoke of receiving 2.5 million rupees ($28,865) from Johar to criticise Devgn’s film, a charge that Johar said was beneath him to dignify with a response.

“Kamaal R Khan got out of control because the film industry allowed him to,” a senior film critic told Al Jazeera. “He would be called to press shows and be treated as a VIP. Several directors and actors, including [Bollywood superstar] Amitabh Bachchan, would repost his reviews and promote his stuff. He got legitimacy from the film industry because they’re all willing to prop you up when you’re pulling someone else down,” he added.

T 5073(i) – All good wishes ..

Launch of the T-Series Song “Mere Saathiya” sung by Ankit Tiwari and composed by DJ Shezwood. Cast- KRK, Rakshika Sharma and Keeya Sharma. Watch and enjoy!

Link : https://t.co/YPSIeM1v1r@TSeries @kamaalrkhan @officiallyankit pic.twitter.com/DwyYZOh5qt

— Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) July 16, 2024

KRK’s celebrity status and clout in Bollywood made his toxicity a template and revenue model for other social media influencers and YouTubers.

In February 2024, Vidyut Jamwal, 44, an action hero of B-grade Bollywood thrillers, was promoting his forthcoming film, Crakk, when he called out Sumit Kadel, a self-styled social media film critic and trade analyst.

“Asking for a bribe is a crime and giving one is a crime too. My crime is not giving? So every time you praise someone, we know the criminal,” he tweeted, tagging Kadel, who had blocked him. Kadel denied demanding money.

Five months later in July, the makers of the six-billion-rupee ($69m) sci-fi film Kalki 2898 AD, starring Amitabh Bachchan, Prabhas and Deepika Padukone, served a legal notice to Kadel and another trade analyst Rohit Jaiswal for alleging on social media that the filmmakers were reporting fake box office numbers.

“The fact is that the film industry fed this monster. They created these influencers, they created people that they could buy off,” the veteran acclaimed director said.

KRK, Kadel and Jaiswal did not respond to questions from Al Jazeera.

‘Treat those who charge to write positive stories as billboards’

Prabhat Choudhary, 45, credited with some of the biggest and most successful film campaigns, is often referred to as Bollywood’s Chief Strategy Officer. The CEO of Spice PR, Bollywood’s leading marketing firm, Choudhary’s client list includes Bollywood’s A-listers whom he advises on image building, branding, social media engagement and what to say on contentious topics like #MeToo. His company, Spice, is also well-known in Bollywood for buying reviews.

“Spice guys are so brazen that now they send emails saying we would like to collaborate on reviews,” a veteran director told Al Jazeera.

A PR agent who works regularly with Spice PR told Al Jazeera that they routinely ask him if reviews can be padded. “They call journalists and ask, ‘Did you like the film?’ If you say it was good, they will pick up money on your behalf from the producer, actor.” This money may or may not be passed on to the critic.

In August last year, the buzz ahead of the release of a spy thriller starring a leading young actress was that the film was not going to do well. According to an industry insider, Choudhury called the actress and asked for one million rupees ($11,000) to pay for some good reviews. She asked him for the critics’ names and the amounts he would pay the individuals. “He said, ‘No, I can’t do that, because this is our relationship with them,’” the industry insider told Al Jazeera.

The actress eventually decided not to pay for the reviews.

Spice PR and Choudhary did not respond to questions from Al Jazeera.

The practice of buying film reviews and paying for positive stories is so normalised and pervasive in Bollywood that recently in a podcast interview Taapsee Pannu, another young Bollywood actress, recalled how leading star Shah Rukh Khan convinced her otherwise when she expressed misgivings about paying to get positive articles.

“He told me to treat those who charge to write positive stories as ‘billboards’. ‘Just as you pay for billboards, you pay them,’ he told me,” she said on ANI Podcast with Smita Prakash.

Shah Rukh Khan did not respond to questions from Al Jazeera.

‘Alternate reality’

Bollywood is not alone in wanting fake praise. It’s a malice common to showbiz across the world.

In 2005, Sony Pictures paid $1.5m to theatregoers in the US as compensation after it was reported that marketing executives at its subsidiary, Columbia Pictures, had created a fictitious reviewer, David Manning of Ridgefield Press, who consistently wrote good reviews of their films.

In 2022, the Golden Globes awards were cancelled for multiple reasons including revelations that its members, who had nominated Netflix’s Emily in Paris for a couple of awards, were taken on a paid holiday in 2019 to Paris by the show’s creator, Paramount Network.

Bollywood may not have had a David Manning, but sometimes the pursuit of positive reviews has had embarrassing outcomes.

In the summer of 2023, T-Series, a family-owned film production house and music label with a net worth of 100 billion rupees ($1.15bn), released Adipurush (First Man), a film that cost seven billion rupees ($80m) and reimagined the Hindu mythological epic Ramayan in a terribly tacky way.

Most independent critics and viewers panned it for its crass dialogue and clumsy computer-generated imagery. But among the critics, several media groups and reviewers praised the film, giving it a 4-star rating and even calling it a “magnum opus”. It was impossible to tell what was real or paid for.

Rumours started circulating that its team messaged several popular account holders on X to take down negative posts about the film, offering money to post positive reviews. Some of these handles posted the messages that were purportedly sent on behalf of T-Series.

“We are living in The Truman Show. It’s all alternate reality, all very dystopian,” Hansal Mehta, a critically acclaimed Bollywood director, told Al Jazeera. “PR has become paid relations, not public relations. You don’t know what is good, what is bad, what is right, what is wrong. And films are unable to sustain any kind of business because nothing is organic any more.”

Adipurush was a massive flop.

A T-Series spokesperson told Al Jazeera that “paying to alter perception is not a practice we follow”.

So Adipurush team is paying me ₹9500/tweet to post positive reviews about the movie.

But I am not Bikau like RW, I carry my dharma on my sleeves and I will never compromise for it. pic.twitter.com/2K650im6iF

— Dr Nimo Yadav 2.0 (@niiravmodi) June 17, 2023

“They [Bollywood producers and actors] manipulate box office figures, fudge reviews. Bollywood is not [just] digging its grave. It’s standing in its grave and won’t stop digging,” Bansal, the film distributor, said.

Some movie producers are starting to take a stand. Last year, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, a film producers’ association filed a court case seeking a three-day ban on movie reviews on social media after a film’s release in theatres.

They claimed that the business of at least three big-budget films starring three superstars – Kamal Haasan’s Indian 2, Suriya’s Kanguva and Rajinikanth’s Vettaiyan, whose cumulative budget was $110m – was impacted because of “tasteless” and negative reviews on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and X.

The court rejected the plea but asked the government and YouTube to respond with steps to regulate film criticism.

In Bollywood, many agree that Johar may have taken the first step towards putting an end to at least the business of buying positive reviews, but they also doubt if Dharma Productions would stick to it.

“Ending this nexus is not going to be easy unless producers and actors follow Dharma’s lead and are consistent,” a senior film critic said. “And course correction also means making better films that producers are confident of.”