Lights Camera Scoop: Ranveer Singh's Late Night 'War 2' Show With 'Dhurandhar' Team in Ladakh; 'Paid Troll' Attack on Pooja Hegde

Nothing can stop Ranveer Singh from watching a film, even if it means visiting the world’s highest altitude cinema hall at a location where traditional theatres don't exist. The actor, continuing his trend of keeping up with the latest in the world of cinema, went for a late-night show of the biggest Bollywood release of the year: War 2.

Currently in Ladakh, where he is filming his upcoming actioner Dhurandhar, Singh made it a point to be the first-day audience for Hrithik Roshan-JR NTR starrer, which released on Thursday. The film is backed by Yash Raj Films, which had launched Singh to instant stardom 15 years ago.

The actor checked into the mobile digital movie theatre of Picture Time in Ladakh—at 11,562 feet—along with nearly 12 crew members of Dhurandhar, all of whom have been toiling day and night, racing against time to ready the film for a grand opening later this year.

Though it was a long, intense day of filming, sources tell THR India that Singh appeared excited as he watched Hrithik and JR NTR battle it out on the big screen. As the credits rolled, the actor, as he always does, obliged other members in the audience with pictures and charming talk, and headed back to his hotel.

The crew of Dhurandhar is on the last leg of finishing the upcoming espionage action thriller, which will arrive globally on December 5. Those who have seen early rushes of the film insist that the Aditya Dhar-directorial is on a strong footing and will explode at the box-office if it lands the way the team is hopeful for.

While there is no word on Singh's review for the film, there is different chatter going on digitally about War 2. In an amusing and strangely desperate move by YRF, fandoms and trade are having a huge laugh at a specific tweet from the production house, which was sharing special 'review' creatives on social media.

Nothing wrong with that, all marketing teams do that across the world, picking up the best lines from reviews and pasting them on fancy stills from their film for high impact. Except, here, the team cherry-picked three positive words from a scathing review by veteran trade analyst Taran Adarsh and promoted them as a glowing endorsement.

The review creative featured Hrithik and Kiara Advani, quoting Adarsh's words: "Has star power, scale, style stunts." However, the full review was far from flattering, with Adarsh calling it the "weakest film" in YRF's Spy Universe that "lacks soul" due to poor writing, calling it a "royal mess!" None of the other words made it to any creative.

The 'War 2' creative

While that led to the production house receiving flak on X, not all trolling is, for the lack of a better word, "organic". Some have been vicious, deliberate and targeted, as was revealed by actor Pooja Hegde in a recent THR India interview. The actor, who is currently seen in Coolie in the special 'Monica' track, opened up about being at the receiving end of "paid trolling".

"When it started, my mom was the one who got really upset. ‘Why are they saying this?’ she would ask, and I used to take it as a compliment because if somebody needs to pull you down, you’re above them." The actor has been vocal about being targeted with paid negative campaigns, which has been an open secret in the film industry.

There are digital agencies that actors, filmmakers and producers hire to plant negative narratives about their rivals, specifically in the form of tweets and Instagram comments. If, for example, X actor's team activates the campaign on Y, every time Y posts anything—from ads, film stills, or selfies—their comments would be flooded by abuse and unrelated criticism. It has been used relentlessly to pull a film down if the box-office hasn't been favouring it, or trash the lead stars if they are basking in glory.

A similar campaign played out recently in Bollywood, when a film broke out and then targeted posts started popping, running down the lead stars and even tearing the film down, even as it minted crores.