Dulquer Salmaan Owns I’m Game Failure: Blame Me

When a film misses, the usual playbook is evasive: blame the release date, blame the marketing, blame a “section of the audience.” Dulquer Salmaan took a different route on Wednesday. He met disappointed fans on X and offered a candid, surprisingly warm response to the criticism aimed at I’m Game and Wayfarer Films.

The criticism landed, and he didn’t duck it

One viewer described the film as “valare shokam” and asked him to come back with a better film next time. Dulquer thanked the fan for caring, then explained that audiences often don’t see everything that happens around a production. As he put it, circumstances can be “out of the control of the best intended production house also.”

Another user was more pointed, arguing that Wayfarer Films had “messed up the project.” Rather than push back, Dulquer largely agreed.

“I’m not saying you were wrong in your analysis. You were mostly right. And trust me we are aware of all of it.”

He went on to say that even when a team does everything right, “outside factors or other circumstances can turn those upside down.”

One star, 200-300 people, zero formulas

Dulquer’s larger point was about scale and uncertainty. A film, he noted, takes around 200 to 300 people to make. That means a producer is coordinating internal and external teams, creative decisions and logistics that don’t move in a straight line.

• He admitted the fan analysis was mostly right.
• He refused to single out any department or person for blame.
• He said no production house or actor sets out to make a bad film.
• He ended with a clear line: “if you want to blame someone you can blame me.”

To our filmi ears, that last part matters. It is the kind of accountability fans say they want from producers but rarely get when a big title underperforms.

Why this changes the conversation

What Dulquer is describing is basically outcome bias: judging a complicated, many-hands process only by its final result. It’s easy for audiences to watch a finished film and assume one decision caused the miss. Dulquer is asking fans to see the same project from the production side, where hundreds of people and outside circumstances all have to land together.

That doesn’t make the film better or erase the disappointment. But it reframes what accountability can look like: not a blame game, but a producer standing in front of the result while promising to keep working. For fans, the useful bit is not to excuse the film; you paid for the ticket. It is to judge the result while recognising the process Dulquer describes. For industry watchers, his response is a template: say what went wrong, don’t name scapegoats, and promise the next one differently. The real test is whether Wayfarer’s next film shows the learning.

Source: Filmfare