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.

The night before a movie’s release should be all about celebration for the makers and the team. But Sikandar’s leading man Salman Khan and producer Sajid Nadiadwala spent Saturday night and the early hours of March 30 scrambling to contain an online leak of their film. Hours before A R Murugadoss’ directorial venture hit the theatres on March 30 morning, the film’s high-definition (HD) version made its way to X. To combat the leak, Nadiadwala’s production house, Khan’s fan clubs and Mumbai Police’s cyber department worked together and pulled down over 3000 links.

Ravi Desai, who heads the Salman Khan Fan Club on X, reveals that a sign was there in the days leading up to the release. “On March 26, a handle had posted an unseen image from the film and claimed that they will release the film’s prints. Later, that account vanished. On Saturday at 11.30 pm, a print was released from another X handle. It was first available on HDM [a website for torrent downloads], and from there, it came to X. By 12 am, it was everywhere,” he recalls.

Desai and many other fans promptly alerted Salman Khan Films (SKF) at midnight about the development. In the next half-an-hour, SKF, Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment, and the anti-piracy agency, FX Securities, sprung into action. Desai says together, they worked with the Cyber Wing of Mumbai Police that combed X and Telegram to find the accounts.

“Within hours, we received thousands of reports from fans who helped us track down many accounts. Over 3000 links have been pulled down so far,” says Desai, adding, “We feel the leak happened at the post-production end.”

Piracy has become a rampant issue in the film industry, with many movies, including the recent L2 Empuraan and Game Changer, leaked online. It’s too early to deduce whether the box-office collection of Sikandar—that marks Khan’s return to the big screen over a year after Tiger 3 (2023) and also stars Rashmika Mandanna—has been adversely affected by the leak. Nadiadwala’s production house has reported over 1000 accounts to the authorities.

A source from the production team says, “Salman sir and Sajid sir have been in constant touch with the FX cyber security team, legal advisors, and social media platforms. The original source of the leak remains unidentified. The authorities are tracking the IP addresses linked to the pirated version’s dissemination. There will be consequences for those involved.”