Stree 2 Credit War: Not Rajkummar Rao Or Shraddha Kapoor, Movie Is The Real Winner In 'PR Battle'

Stree 2 has been in the news since its release on August 14 with limited paid previews. Banking on positive word-of-mouth and its good-humoured storytelling, the Amar Kaushik directorial has staked its claim as the top-grossing Bollywood film in 2024. However, as pointed out by Aparshakti Khurana, the film's success has been mired in an "unpleasant" PR game, which seems to be dividing the fruits of the team's labour between Rajkummar Rao and Shraddha Kapoor.

Stree is Shraddha, Shraddha is Stree

Ahead of the film's release, Shraddha Kapoor and Rajkummar Rao participated in the country-wide promotions. It is interesting to note that at this juncture, a social media narrative had started to emerge, with phrases like "woh stree hai, woh kuch bhi kar sakti hai" often featuring in the comments sections in related posts. Automatically, 'Stree' was being associated with Shraddha Kapoor.

On X, parallelly, Shraddha's stills from the film, mostly featuring her glamorous looks, were also flooded to keep the conversation centered around her. However, something changed after Stree 2 finally hit the big screens.

Who is the lead actor in Stree 2?

Shraddha's absence till the interval point in the movie led netizens to question whether she is actually the "face of the film" as pitched on social media so far. Here's when the conversation pivoted around Rajkummar Rao, who practically does the "heavy lifting" in Stree 2 and technically has more screentime than Shraddha.  

While Shraddha was being credited with "pulling in the audiences", a section of the social media was of the opinion that it is Rajkummar's punchy dialogues and hilarious act that make the people stay. Seemingly, the Badhaai Do actor's team saw an opportunity here and started to crown him as the "lead actor" of the movie, with such posts flooding social media platforms.

The insider vs outside debate

The insider vs outsider debate in Bollywood has been in focus ever since Sushant Singh Rajput's death. After the hornet's nest was stirred, many have come forth saying how their "outsider" status in the film industry doesn't help them grab as many opportunities as those with filmy backgrounds. The Shraddha vs Rajkummar credit war also unfolded in this context, considering the actress' strong film ties as opposed to the latter's rags-to-riches story in the Maximum City.

"To take away credit from an outsider" seemed off to many.

What is there to learn from It Ends With Us drama?

Rewind back a few weeks, a controversy surrounded the release of the Hollywood film It Ends With Us, starring Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. The co-stars reportedly feuded on set and stories from the time came up during and after the film's release. Netizens took sides, keeping the conversation around the film alive, even though for negative reasons. Eventually, It Ends With Us benefitted and people thronged the cinema halls to watch the movie.       

 There's a lesson to be learned here and Stree 2 team surely did - every publicity is good publicity.