Ram Gopal Varma calls Ram Charan's Game Changer box office numbers 'fraud'

Ram Gopal Varma criticised the reported box office figures of Ram Charan's film Game Changer, alleging fraud and questioning the credibility of the numbers shared by the producers. He expressed concern over the exaggerated claims potentially undermining the achievements of other successful South Indian films.

In Short

• Ram Gopal Varma accused Game Changer's box office numbers of being fraudulent
• The film-maker questioned who is responsible for the alleged lies about the film's earnings
• Varma raised doubts about the film's budget and criticises the believability of the reported figures

Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma criticised the reported box office figures of Ram Charan's latest film, Game Changer. Varma expressed doubts about the film's earnings, highlighting discrepancies between the figures claimed by the producers and those reported by trade analysts. He took to X to voice his concerns, suggesting that the collections claimed by Game Changer's team were misleading.

Varma questioned the credibility of the film's reported earnings and expressed concern over the potential impact on the reputation of South Indian cinema. He mentioned successful films like Baahubali, RRR, and KGF 2, stating that the alleged inaccuracies surrounding Game Changer's box office results could cast doubt on these achievements. While he absolved producer Dil Raju of any wrongdoing, Varma wondered about the source of the purported misinformation.

In the post, Varma wrote, "If @ssrajamouli and @SukumarWritings sky rocketed telugu cinema in real time collections into a fantastically stratospheric heights thereby sending legitimate shock waves into Bollywood, the people behind G C succeeded in proving that the south is much more FANTASTIC in being a FRAUD. I truly don’t know who’s behind this highly humiliating disgracing insult of undermining the extraordinary achievements of south thanks to bahubali ,RRR , Kgf 2, kantara etc and all of their achievements will be now in doubt because of G C claims (sic)."

He continued, "I don’t know who’s behind this unbelievably naive lies , but for sure it can’t be producer Dil Raju because he is a truly grounded realist and he’s incapable of the fraud that is being commited (sic)."

Game Changer's producers claimed that the film earned Rs 186 crore on its opening day, January 10, positioning it as one of the top openings for an Indian film. However, trade sources reported significantly lower figures, with some estimating the worldwide collection to be under Rs 100 crore.

Varma also raised questions about the film's reported budget, comparing it to the production costs of other high-profile films. He wrote, "If G C costed some 450 cr then RRR in its extraordinary never before seen visual appeal should have costed 4500 cr and if G C film’s first day collections are 186 cr on day 1 , then PUSHPA 2 collections should have been 1,860 cr ..The point is that the fundamental requirement of TRUTH is that it should sound BELIEVABLE and in the context of G C a LIE should sound even more BELIEVABLE (sic)."

Directed by Shankar, Game Changer features Ram Charan, Kiara Advani, and SJ Suryah. Despite a strong start at the domestic box office, the political thriller's performance declined, with collections yet to reach Rs 100 crore in domestic net earnings after four days of release.