The claims about Game Changer's box office collections have become a source of amusement for industry insiders and record trackers.
To everyone’s surprise, the makers released a poster announcing a worldwide gross of Rs 186 crore on day one, despite the film struggling with low advance bookings and receiving disastrous word of mouth from day one.
Director Ram Gopal Varma weighed in with a satirical tweet: "If Game Changer cost Rs 450 crore, then RRR, with its extraordinary visuals, should have cost Rs 4500 crore. If Game Changer's day-one collections are Rs 186 crore, Pushpa 2's collections should have been Rs 1860 crore. The fundamental requirement of truth is that it should sound believable, and for Game Changer, even a lie should sound more believable."
Leaving the satire aside, the key issue is "believability." Despite poor performance, the makers are allegedly inflating numbers, adding crores daily to project an impressive worldwide gross.
When asked, an insider said, "In my opinion, the key idea of the makers and Ram Charan's office could be to show that this film at least collected more than Pushpa 1: The Rise. Since the film cannot even dream of touching the collections of Pushpa 2, they may be hoping to project it as if it has surpassed Pushpa 1, though even that is a difficult task. So, they plan to manipulate the numbers accordingly and stop there."
When asked why this manipulative approach is being taken, the insider said, "At least by doing so, they can claim that even a flop, disastrous film starring Ram Charan managed to collect big, despite no ticket price hikes."
"It's an attempt to keep the market value of Ram Charan safe", he concluded.
While the makers claim a gross of Rs 300 crore, popular collection-tracking portal Sacnilk reports the film’s actual worldwide gross is closer to Rs 130 crore.
