On Monday night, many accounts on X posted a video in which movie-goers, after apparently having watched Sikandar, are expressing their disappointment with the Salman Khan-starrer. Soon, it came to light that it was, in fact, an old video of viewers reacting to Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan (2023), but was being circulated on X as a reaction to Khan’s latest release. What’s worse, it was being run as an ad on the platform.

While Sikandar has opened to poor reviews and an underwhelming response, members of Khan’s fan clubs suspect that negative advertising is being used to influence the audience’s perception of the Eid release.

Ravi Desai, who runs the Salman Khan Fan Club, says that negativity around the A R Murugadoss-directed venture is being artificially inflated. “It remains to be seen whether this campaign is driven by someone in the industry, or just an aggressive push by rival fan groups. But something like this has the power to wipe off a film. It happened during Tubelight [2017]. You can’t combat these posts because there is most likely an agency hired and it is multiplying bots every hour. [Many posts] claimed that shows are cancelled, but if you check at Gaiety Galaxy, the shows are sold out,” he argues.

Rohit Sharma, who runs the fan club, Salman Army, points out how a boycott campaign had been run against Laal Singh Chaddha (2021). “We saw how online hate ensured that people stayed away from Aamir Khan’s film. Something similar is happening here. Why is an old video being sold as a reaction to Sikandar,” he questions, adding that those at the helm of it are setting a “dangerous precedent”.

“If an agency can be hired to run paid ads and amplify negative tweets about a film, it can be used against any actor or filmmaker in the future. It’s manipulation,” he says.