Sudhir Kothari, 36, a monetary analyst and adviser based mostly within the southern Indian metropolis of Chennai, has ordered a particular five-kilogramme (11-pound) choco-truffle cake, garlands and booked dhol (drum) gamers. The T-shirts, badges and wristbands that he had ordered arrived in time and Rohini Silver Screens theatre has allowed him to erect a 7.4-metre (25-foot) cutout of Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan for the particular 9am “First Day, First Present” of Dunki, Khan’s new movie that releases worldwide on Thursday.

A diehard “SKRian”, as Khan’s followers name themselves, Kothari advised Al Jazeera that in 2013, three to 4 days after “SRK sir began following me, I turned my private Twitter account right into a fan membership.” At this time his deal with, SRKChennaiFC, has 167,600 followers.

Kothari, who prefers the appellation “The Solely Fan SRK Follows” to his personal title, and has written a e-book of the identical title, was busy till late Wednesday night overseeing the preparations on the theatre, booked for SRK followers after submitting a assist letter from SRK’s manufacturing crew. After garlanding and pouring milk over Khan’s cutout, they are going to mild fireworks and dance.

Contained in the 550-seater theatre, too, they are going to dance, reduce the cake and submit movies on their handles with rapturous adjectives and hashtags like #DunkiReview, meant to tickle the curiosity of potential ticket consumers.

In all probability, Khan, who has 43.9 million followers on X and follows 74 folks, of whom 5 are fan accounts, will acknowledge the celebration movies with a candy thanks and #Dunki.

Yash Paryani, the admin of SRK Universe, Khan’s greatest fan membership which has 3.2 million followers on Fb, tweeted that for December 21, followers are organising “1,000+ first day, first reveals in 65 nations”.

Rishil Jogani, who stated he’s a part of “a small group of admins of Khan’s fan golf equipment that takes some massive selections”, advised Al Jazeera that “these numbers aren’t one hundred pc correct,” however followers and fan golf equipment submit them as a result of “euphoria could be very contagious. There may be FOMO (worry of lacking out) and it motivates folks to e-book tickets.”

All of the followers Al Jazeera spoke with stated that they “don’t get a penny” or any free tickets, they usually do all this out of their love for Khan, hoping for one finish consequence: “For SRK movies to do wonders and for him to be blissful”.

Dunki, in contrast to Khan’s two multi-star, action-packed hits launched earlier this yr, is using totally on Khan’s shoulders and can take a look at his box-office clout. To organize for that, he has spent months advertising and marketing it in a method that resembles the election marketing campaign fashion of India’s governing right-wing Bharatiya Janata Social gathering, the very social gathering he has had a number of run-ins with up to now. However it’s not clear if all this effort will repay this time.

Hopes for a hat-trick

This yr has been a really blissful one for Khan, 58, who returned to theatre screens after a four-year hiatus, a string of flops and a large private setback.

His two movies — Pathaan, which was launched in January this yr, and, Jawan (Soldier), in September — have been blockbuster hits, and have made it to the highest 10 highest-grossing Indian movies ever. With Dunki, trade insiders stated, Khan is hoping to attain a hat-trick.

The yr of Khan’s final box-office hit, 2015, was additionally the yr when he known as out rising spiritual intolerance within the nation, ruffling the feathers of the governing right-wing Bharatiya Janata Social gathering (BJP). A concerted backlash adopted, his movies have been trolled and threatened with requires boycott, and it appeared that he had misplaced his box-office mojo after three flops and two that did middling enterprise.

In 2021, through the pandemic, his then-24-year-old son Aryan Khan was arrested, together with seven others, in an alleged drug bust on board a cruise ship off the Mumbai coast. The younger Khan was charged with possession, consumption and sale of unlawful substances and needed to spend about three weeks in jail. Seven months later, all the costs have been dropped.

Khan has all the time been outspoken and doesn’t scare simply. He as soon as reportedly advised off a Mumbai mafia boss who was pressuring him to behave in a movie, “Shoot me if you wish to, however I received’t give you the results you want. I’m a Pathaan,” referring to the proud, warrior clan that he’s a descendent of.

His public appearances all the time sparkled together with his signature repartee. Properly-read and sharp, he gave candid interviews and would seem frequently on actuality and comedy TV reveals, particularly whereas selling his movies.

However after his son was arrested and makes an attempt have been allegedly made to extort cash from Khan, he went quiet and retreated from public view. He made no assertion on his son’s arrest and the allegations towards him, and stopped assembly the press or making appearances on TV reveals.

The one connection he continued to take care of was together with his followers, on-line and offline and as we speak it is without doubt one of the greatest and most lively fan communities of a Bollywood star.

When Pathaan was launched in January, Khan’s followers internationally purchased 50,000 tickets for the primary day, first present, stated Paryani. For Jawan, they beat their very own file and purchased 85,000 tickets.

With a complete gross incomes of 21 billion rupees ($253m) on the field workplace, Khan is now being credited for reviving Bollywood, which had been struggling for a success for the previous few years.

“There’s a nicely thought out technique behind what now we have seen — Shah Rukh Khan as a phenomenon in 2023,” Girish Johar, producer and movie enterprise skilled, advised Al Jazeera. “The movies have been positioned, marketed and launched in such a way that his fan base, box-office numbers and his craze will increase daily, with each movie,” he stated.

Pathaan, a multi-star movie with massive Bollywood stars like Deepika Padukone, John Abraham and Salman Khan, was launched on India’s Republic Day weekend in three languages on numerous screens domestically and abroad.

Jawan, by Atlee, a number one Tamil director, had some massive southern Indian stars who’ve a large fan following in India and overseas.

“Hindi movies used to clock (250 million to 300 million rupees; $3m-3.6m) within the south. Jawan was the primary Bollywood movie which has completed (700 million to 800 million rupees; $8.4m-9.6m) enterprise within the south,” Johar stated.

Khan’s followers are upbeat about Dunki, whose title refers back to the “donkey route” used to smuggle folks from the subcontinent to Europe. “The movie’s content material will communicate for itself,” they are saying and are targeted on making certain that the movie, made on lower than one-third of Jawan’s price range, beats it on the field workplace.

Business insiders are sceptical that can occur as a result of, in contrast to Khan’s two motion movies this yr, Dunki is an emotional drama about unlawful migration from Punjab to the UK, and in India today, motion scores over emotion.

2023: Shah Rukh Khan’s reinvention

In 2016, Khan, usually known as the “King of Bollywood”, ranked number-one with a model worth of $131.2m in Duff & Phelps’s movie star valuation report. By 2022, he had dropped to the number-10 place with a worth of $55.7m in 2022.

“2023 will be outlined because the yr of Shah Rukh Khan’s reinvention,” PR veteran and picture guru Dilip Cherian stated, explaining how Khan took cost of his “reinvention” by doing three issues.

For one, Khan, identified for enjoying romantic leads, targeted on aligning his movies with the temper of the nation by opting to play characters that have been all about “heroism, machismo and nationalism”.

“Take any of the large marquee movies within the final one yr — all the movies have featured males with weapons on posters,” stated Rohini Ramnathan, a radio jockey who anchored Khan’s birthday celebrations on November 2 with followers.

The second factor that Khan did was to retain management of his model, picture and the narrative about him by “completely abandoning the mainstream media”, Cherian stated. That ensured he didn’t must reply any questions or lose his cool with journalists as had occurred up to now and that it was all a one-way messaging push.

And third “is the encompass sound that’s created by his visits to non secular shrines, to matches on the not too long ago concluded Cricket World Cup, look on the premiere of his daughter’s movie — this offers you (Khan) content material to play with within the media” as movies of those outings have gone viral, and been coated by the mainstream media.

To advertise Dunki, Khan, who’s the model ambassador of UAE’s Burjeel Hospital, toured Dubai not too long ago, however has not completed any occasion in India.

He has been frequently posting promotional materials on social media, together with on X the place he interacts frequently together with his followers via “Ask Me Something” periods. He principally avoids crucial questions, choosing fawning or humorous tweets to which he responds with jokes, compliments and digital hugs. Often, he’ll name out abusive ones with tongue-in-cheek responses. Plenty of this banter finally ends up as tales on information websites.

“Replying to folks one-on-one takes braveness and lots of pondering … That possession is magical. And he’s doing this with common frequency. That begins altering the vibe,” stated Neeraj Joshi, head of selling at Zee Studios, which produces, distributes and markets movies and TV reveals. “It’s strategic and half of a bigger sport, however additionally it is actual to an incredible extent,” he added.

Behind this echo chamber chatter, the on-ground and on-line promotion of his movies that’s seemingly entrusted to followers, is shrewd enterprise planning backed by knowledge, perception into client behaviour, a stable movie distribution and exhibition plan by a crew that features his spouse, Gauri Khan. She and Khan are administrators of Pink Chillies Leisure, a manufacturing home.

Delhi-based Narrative Analysis Lab, which makes use of AI to review the affect of social media conversations, analysed 310 tweets by Khan from September 16 to November 12 at Al Jazeera’s request and located that the tweet with the best variety of likes was the one during which Khan posted a photograph of Lord Ganesha with greetings on the event of a Hindu pageant.

Final week, Khan visited two Hindu shrines and movies of each went viral on social media.

The tweet that had the second-highest engagement was when Khan thanked his followers for gathering exterior his home to want him on his birthday.

“In some ways,” stated Sundeep Narwani, co-founder of Narrative Analysis Lab, “Shah Rukh Khan’s rebranding and movie campaigns are just like an election marketing campaign…. They’ve learnt that they must struggle again.”

Khan has plotted his blockbuster return with the depth, prudence and calculation normally seen in political comebacks. And there are a number of uncanny similarities between what he’s doing and the way the BJP conducts its election campaigns, from counting on loyalists on the bottom, controlling the narrative by bypassing the mainstream media to constructing a personality-focused cult following.

‘Milk’ his fandom

In the previous few months, there was a surge within the variety of clips of Khan on social media, particularly Instagram. Collectively, they create a really particular picture of Khan as a humorous, clever and humble man, however with rockstar swagger.

There are clips of him being respectful to girls, being a caring father and husband, regaling audiences with self-deprecating humour, sharing life classes with college college students and smiling as followers bathe him with compliments and love.

What’s conspicuously lacking from this curated gallery of movies are Khan’s political statements, bouts of anger at reckless selfie-seeking followers, fights with co-stars, and alleged affairs.

“It’s a really deliberate try to churn out content material that makes him look very cult-like,” stated Narwani.

Final month, to have fun Khan’s birthday, his crew booked an auditorium in Bandra, house to many prime Bollywood stars in Mumbai, and invited about 300-400 members of his numerous fan golf equipment after vetting them.

The occasion was organised like all Bollywood leisure gala, with an anchor, a script, and background dancers to accompany Khan on stage. He spent three to 4 hours entertaining them, speaking to them and clicking images. There was additionally cake, meals and presents.

“This time they gave backpacks,” Paryani stated. Final yr was smartwatches.

The backpack, with #SRKDay embossed on it, had a quote from Khan printed on it: “By no means cease dreaming.”

“Shah Rukh Khan speaks to the aspirational essence that’s inside each Indian,” stated Kenneth Hopkins, the founding father of BollyCon, a popular culture conference in Mumbai.

“Khan’s enchantment lies within the story he tells — I got here to Mumbai with nothing and take a look at me as we speak, I personal the trade … If his followers are shopping for into his model and model sentiment of aspiration, then you definately even have to precise hubris … hubris towards injustice, the system,” stated Hopkins and added, “On the finish of the day, Shah Rukh Khan is a baniya (an Indian buying and selling group) … I don’t imply to be offensive, however he’ll see easy methods to milk that … (for) conversion into ticket gross sales.”

Whereas Pathaan was an excessively patriotic movie, Jawan was political and private, with Khan taking part in a double position of a father and son.

When the movie’s trailer was launched, all consideration was on one dialogue that was akin to the emotion famously expressed by Liam Neeson within the 2008 movie, Taken: “Bete pe jane se pehle baap se baat kar (Discuss to me earlier than you contact my son).”

“What occurred to his household was so, so brutal. And all of us simply needed him to win … His profitable was like a private triumph for everyone. It felt just like the world is alright,” Ramnathan stated.

If Dunki breaks box-office data, it’ll be a cheerful finish to a very good yr for Bollywood, courtesy Khan. It it doesn’t, it received’t matter a lot as a result of for Khan a battle had been fought and received.

From disapproval to admiration

Dunki is ready within the north Indian state of Punjab the place many houses have overhead water tanks formed like planes, American milk vehicles, and even the Statue of Liberty. They signify the place a member of the family has migrated to.

Within the movie, made by Rajkumar Hirani, one in all India’s main administrators, Khan performs the lead character, Hardy, who takes his 4 associates to London via the unlawful and treacherous “donkey route”. Indians make up the world’s greatest diaspora inhabitants of about 17.9 million and the movie’s theme appeals to Indians at house and overseas.

Hirani is taken into account infallible on the field workplace and has his personal fan following. However Dunki’s benefit and drawback is Hirani.

In 2014, Hirani directed PK, starring Aamir Khan as an alien who lands in India and begins to query the blind religion and devotion to non secular gurus. The movie has remained one of many highest-grossing movies, however is dredged up many times by right-wing trolls to label him as anti-national and name for a boycott of his movies.

In 2019, Hirani was accused by a girl who had labored with him of sexual assault and abuse over a six-month interval. Hirani denied the allegations, however the girl stands by her account. Dunki is his first movie since then.

The sexual harassment case towards Hirani has not the best wing as a result of a number of BJP leaders have been accused of comparable abuse. However each few days there’s a name on X to boycott Hirani and Dunki over PK.

Based on Narrative Lab’s evaluation, on November 2, when Khan tweeted the primary promotional video of Dunki, he tagged Hirani. About 7 % of the feedback the tweet obtained have been unfavourable.

Khan tweeted 4 extra promotional movies over 10 days, however didn’t tag or point out Hirani.

“The disapproval that we had seen in feedback across the November 2 tweet disappeared by the fifth tweet,” Narwani stated.

Al Jazeera reached out to Pink Chillies to ask if on-line interplay between Khan and Hirani was being prevented to minimise any unfavourable chatter. They declined to reply.

“The precise wing wants some rationale, some story for a boycott name to stay. And Shah Rukh Khan, by not speaking, shouldn’t be giving them something,” Narwani stated.