Dhurandhar Box Office Fraud Exposed as Indian Media and Comscore Data Fail Mathematical Audit

There is a growing observation that Comscore, much like local media outlets, is participating in this deception by accepting “Studio Estimates” without independent verification.

By Rakesh Raman
New Delhi | April 6, 2026

On Monday, April 6, 2026, a massive data discrepancy surfaced in the reported earnings of the Ranveer Singh-starrer Dhurandhar: The Revenge. A forensic comparison between local media headlines and global tracking estimates reveals a “Data Gap” of over ₹842 Crore ($101M). This suggests that not only are local trackers providing fabricated numbers, but global agencies like Comscore may also be playing an unscrupulous role in validating these unverified figures.

The ₹842 Crore Discrepancy

The local media, citing dubious “trade trackers,” claims that Dhurandhar has achieved historic domestic success. However, when these figures are cross-referenced with Comscore’s own international estimates, the math simply does not add up.

Data Conflict Table: Local Media vs. Global Estimates (As of April 6, 2026)

*Note: Comscore’s “Domestic” typically refers to North America; however, in the Indian media narrative, “Domestic” refers to India. The confusion is used to hide the fact that the India Net is being inflated by nearly ₹1,000 Crore.

Possible Collusion: The Comscore ‘Estimates’ Trap

There is a growing observation that Comscore, much like local media outlets, is participating in this deception by accepting “Studio Estimates” without independent verification.

1. Unverified Inputs: Comscore’s reports are explicitly labeled as “Estimates.” This allows the agency to publish whatever numbers a studio provides while avoiding legal liability for the accuracy of the data.

2. Round Number Bias: Comscore reported an “International Weekend” of exactly $10,000,000. In an organic market across 20 territories, such a “perfect” round number is statistically impossible. It indicates a pre-written figure intended to hit a specific PR target.

3. The Global Shield: By appearing on a Comscore chart, an ordinary Bollywood film like Dhurandhar gains “Global Legitimacy.” This allows the makers to silence domestic critics by pointing to “International Rankings,” even when the underlying data is a hallucination.

Institutional Dishonesty: The Media’s Role

The entire editorial community in India appears to have abandoned basic fact-checking. Outlets like Mint provide hyper-specific details—such as the claim that the film ran across 14,229 shows on Day 18—to create an illusion of precision.

Also Read:

[ Box Office Scam: An Empirical Strategy to Audit Bollywood’s Data Laundering ]

[ OPEN LETTER: Notice to AI Ethics Boards on Bollywood’s Box Office Data Laundering ]

[ Dhurandhar The Revenge: How Bollywood’s ‘Muscular’ Action Genre Masks a Democratic Decay ]

[ Comscore Admits Global Box Office Charts for ‘Dhurandhar’ Rely on Unverified Studio Data ]

However, these figures are sourced from “trade trackers” that function as frontal outfits for the studios. By outsourcing their truth to these dubious entities, reputable financial dailies have become part of a larger machinery designed to mislead the public and satisfy a political narrative of national “cinematic victory.”

The Death of Fact in Fiction

The deception extends beyond the box office. When actors from Dhurandhar issue public apologies for playing fictional antagonists, they signal a complete breakdown of the distinction between fact and fiction. This “stupidization” of the audience ensures that as long as the screen is filled with hyper-nationalist spectacle, the actual financial and creative bankruptcy of the industry remains hidden.

A Manufactured Milestone

The ₹1,600 Crore claim for Dhurandhar is not a financial achievement; it is a coordinated campaign of misinformation. As long as media houses and global agencies continue to prioritize “entertainment” over audited facts, the true state of the industry will remain buried under a mountain of fabricated data.

By Rakesh Raman, who is a national award-winning journalist and social activist. He is the founder of the humanitarian organization RMN Foundation which is working in diverse areas to help the disadvantaged and distressed people in the society.