How Rajkummar Rao-Shraddha Kapoor’s Stree 2 success launched a PR war for credit: Whose Stree is it anyway?

While the opening day collections of the horror comedy were humungous — and second only to Shah Rukh Khan’s Jawan, going by the official figures — a tiny storm kept brewing in the teacups of fans, which eventually snowballed into a PR tornado, dragging with it the two names, who have collectively helped the film reach this stage: Rajkummar Rao and Shraddha Kapoor (name mentioned in alphabetical order).

The issue — who between the two should be given bigger credit for pulling in the audience? Who contributed more to the historic opening of the film? On whose name did people book the tickets? Whose Stree is it anyway?

“What has happened in the last 1o days is laughable,” a senior publicist, who has worked with all the major movie stars of the industry, told indianexpress.com on the condition of anonymity. “It was limited to fan wars but now has been turned into a spectacle that has not gone unnoticed by anyone in the industry.”

‘Stree 2 Tug of War – The Origins’

Stree 2 debuted with a strong trailer, which was widely well-received. Screenwriter Niren Bhatt’s witty one-liners caught everyone’s attention, as did the banter of the ensemble led by actors Pankaj Tripathi, Aparshakti Khurana, and Abhishek Banerjee. The team then capitalised on Sachin-Jigar’s music as almost every film track became a chartbuster.

Industry insiders noted how the marketing of the film rightly cashed in on the popularity of Shraddha, her pap-spotting with method dressing, interviews, and social media promotions. “Rajkummar may be a superior actor but has a limited pull on the theatre-going audience. It was a well thought out strategy where Shraddha pulls in the audience and Rajkummar captivates them on screen,” the PR source shared.

Cracks started to show when the advance booking numbers came in, making it clear that Stree 2 would surpass all trade expectations. It was, by then, competing with biggies like Salman Khan-Katrina Kaif’s Tiger 3, Ranbir Kapoor-Alia Bhatt’s Brahmastra, and Shah Rukh Khan’s underperformer Dunki.

Social media posts started to emerge, especially on paparazzi pages how Shraddha Kapoor would be the “biggest crowd puller” when Stree 2 releases, going miles ahead of “all male stars.” Multiple posts surfaced, with her image and hashtag, calling her the film’s obvious draw. Later, the same post began with how “Rajkummar Rao’s Stree 2” was set to “dominate” the box office with more collections than Brahmastra.

Shradda Kapoor stars in Stree 2. (Screengrabs)

Shradda Kapoor in Stree 2. (Screengrab)

“And later when the film opened to those numbers, that became the tug of war for credits between the two actors. The social media PR push on ‘superstar’ Rajkummar beating Salman, Ranbir and the likes made it comical. Similarly, the PR push equating Shraddha’s stardom to that of superstars made a mockery out of the organic love and appreciation the film and actors were garnering,” the PR source shared.

This resulted in a full-blown PR drive on social media, as calculated, coordinated, even similarly worded tweets and Instagram captions started to populate the news feed. The online discourse over the next few days was about whether Stree 2 was a “female-centric” film, in which Shraddha deserves the credit, or a movie riding on the shoulders of Rajkummar Rao (he has more screen time).

Rajkummar Rao stars in Stree 2. (Screengrab)

Rajkummar Rao stars in Stree 2. (Screengrab)

Filmmaker Hansal Mehta offered some missing nuance in the discussion, tweeting how the success of Stree 2 goes “beyond the narrow star-driven calculations” of the industry and how the historic performance of the film shouldn’t be trivialised “by attributing it to one star.”

“This is a talent vehicle, studded with exceptional writing, directorial and histrionic talent. It is a triumph for Rajkummar who we love because he is such a superlative actor. It is a triumph for Amar Kaushik because of his command over the medium and his ability to expertly craft a script into meaningful entertainment for the masses. It is a triumph for Niren Bhatt’s writing – from Taarak Mehta to Bala to Bhediya to Munjya, the man has consistently delivered.

“It is a triumph for an ensemble that is as much a principal lead as Raj and Shraddha. It is a triumph for Indian mainstream cinema. Finally real talent wins. Trade experts and often many critics will still make reductive observations – remember they are no experts. Just people who thrive on oversimplifying talent, story, success and failure,” Hansal wrote.

‘All’s fair in love and credits?’

Film exhibitor Akshaye Rathi had a rather simple, straightforward solution to the situation as he told Indianexpress.com that if the opening day number of a film is higher than the average lifetime business of all the past films headlined by the actor, the credit for its success lies with the filmmakers.

“I’m not discrediting Rajkummar Rao or Shraddha Kapoor’s ability as actors, they’re also fantastic people to work with. But there is a distinction between being a phenomenal actor and being a star. When this nonsense happens, people start putting out lopsided, stupid commercials to actors who draw absolutely nothing at the box office on their merit. That’s where our movies fail; the entire value chain suffers. It’s important that this nonsense done by the PR agencies is called out immediately,” he said.

Claiming credit for bigger numbers of a film, industry sources said, can also be a sly move to hike remuneration. What it does then, is burden the next film they sign with a higher budget than what it can possibly recover.

“The market prices can go higher based on the perceived, deceptive stardom that is projected. What unfortunately doesn’t happen is the kind of sales you expect at the box office. Then the producers, distributors, and the exhibitors suffer,” Rathi explained.

The film exhibitor, who has cinema chains across Maharashtra, said if Shraddha alone has opened Stree 2 at Rs 55 crores, one must take all the films she has toplined, calculate the nett collection of all of them and divide them by the number of her films.

“It’ll probably be lower than Rs 55 cr average. So, where was the stardom in the last three films? Tu Jhoothi Main Makkar is not a Shraddha Kapoor film, it’s a Ranbir Kapoor film with Shraddha in it. Let’s face it. If Rajkummar Rao was a star, Mr and Mrs Mahi should’ve opened to Rs 45 cr, or 35 cr. Where did the stardom erode?

“It’s important to amplify that this is a hit by Dinesh Vijan, Amar Kaushik, Niren Bhatt, Sachin-Jigar, and of course, Rajkummar Rao, Shraddha Kapoor, Pankaj Tripathi, Aparshakti Khurana, Abhishek Banerjee and others. Stardom is where Salman Khan takes a film like Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ka Jaan to Rs 200 cr worldwide. That’s not happening with any of these people, yet,” Rathi said.

A studio executive Indianexpress.com spoke to said that the credit of Stree 2, first and foremost, lies with the director Amar Kaushik, who had also helmed Stree and Bhediya, featuring Varun Dhawan. The team he assembled came together to perform, which resulted in the euphoria of Stree 2.

The senior PR executive shared there was no way to avoid this, as PR agencies and talent management agencies are involved in the mounting of an actor, and it is their job to capitalise on the success of their independent client.

“Not only Shraddha – Raj, but even Abhishek Banerjee has an ongoing campaign, and rightly so, his performance is superlative in the film. During a time when there are only a handful theatrical successes, an actor has to make the most of a silver lining and paint the town red with their success. At the end, this is all done to be able to get more work for the respective actors and there is nothing wrong with it.

“But the PR campaigns could have been run more intelligently rather than over-projecting the star power of a certain actor. It is the PR campaign that made a mockery of Shraddha and Rajkummar for an act that deserves celebration,” the executive shared.

Industry sources, with decades of experience behind them, said a smarter way to roll this out was perhaps by highlighting the track record of the respective actors. “While Shraddha could have talked about Stree being a titular role and the past success of TJMM, Rajkummar could have focused on the rave reviews and the social media feedback. The most important narrative that both the actors could have focused on is that Stree 2 stands to be the biggest film of 2024, a fact that cannot be contested and does not put down any other actor or film.”