Of late, releasing the ‘first look’ of films, teasers, trailers, ‘singles’, etc on Twitter at midnight and trending it with an obscene number of ridiculous hashtags is the ‘in’ practice in Kollywood. While filmmakers continue to do this even for B-List heroes, to increase the hype among ardent film buffs/Twitterattis, time and again it has been proved that content is king, with recent much-hyped debacles being prime examples. (Admit it, you’ve also burnt the midnight oil staying up to share your favourite actor’s terrible preview of his terrible film on social media, haven’t you?)
But director still claim that ‘record views’ for previews translate to good business in the market when the film releases — hence, the obsession, which shows no sign of stopping.
Director-producer Lingusamy opines that opting for a specific time has been set to reach movie buffs all over the world — “Most film enthusiasts who eagerly wait for an official announcement about a project are those who are hooked to Internet. The makers of a film cash in on this factor as it can generate the required hype for a song or poster release, etc. These days, hardcore Tamil movie buffs are not just confined to Tamil Nadu, but scattered across the globe.”
But interestingly, Pa Ranjith didn’t follow the trend to announce the title of his film with Superstar Rajinikanth. It was 3.30 pm in the afternoon when the director revealed on his microblogging page that the movie has been titled Kabali, and there was no prior information that he would give fans a surprise. Yet, within seconds, it was trending on Twitter! However, Lingusamy dismisses it as a rare case, as he believes any news related to Rajini will make headlines, and hence the ‘time factor’ does not apply to his flicks.
Actor Bobby Simha says, “The time chosen by makers to announce a film related news is very important. The number of likes or shares a particular trailer or poster gets, helps us to judge what people like, what appeals to them and also what doesn’t gel with the audience. In that way, I feel releasing something exclusive at mid night is an efficient way to garner maximum attraction. It’s a way of crowd-pulling and publicity for a movie.”
But now let’s consider a recent classic example for the argument — the trailer of Ilayathalapathy’s Puli which released a couple of weeks before the film’s theatrical release smashed the record of Bajrangi Bhaijaan’s most liked Indian trailer. Similarly, the teaser of Ajith-starrer Vedalam, which released on the first week of October, created a unique record — it got 50,000 likes in one hour and beat the record of US singer Taylor Swift’s Bad Blood which received 35,000 in an hour.
