Fact Check: Prabhas fans carry dummy crocodiles into theatres during The Raja Saab screening? Here’s the truth
Videos claiming to show enthusiastic fans of actor Prabhas entering movie theatres with dummy crocodiles to recreate a scene from ‘The Raja Saab’ during its premiere screenings are circulating on social media.
By - M Ramesh Naik
Claim:Three videos show Prabhas fans carrying dummy crocodiles into theatres during the premiere of The Raja Saab, reenacting a viral scene from the film.
Fact:The claim is misleading. Only one of the viral videos is authentic, while the remaining two clips are AI-generated and do not depict real events.
Hyderabad: Telugu superstar Prabhas’ horror-comedy film The Raja Saab, directed by Maruthi and produced by People Media Factory, released worldwide on January 9, as part of the Sankranti movie releases.
The film stars Sanjay Dutt, Nidhhi Agerwal and Malavika Mohanan alongside Prabhas, and revolves around a man searching for his missing grandfather in a haunted mansion, blending horror, romance and humour.
The trailer, released earlier, included an action sequence where Prabhas’ character fights a crocodile, generating significant buzz among fans.
Amid the release celebrations, a set of three videos began circulating online, claiming to show Prabhas fans entering theatres with dummy crocodiles during premiere screenings on January 8, recreating the trailer moment.
One such post by an X user, shared on January 9 with the videos, claimed: “Actor #Prabhas fans were entered the theatres with dummy #Crocodiles during the premiere show of ‘The Raja Saab’ movie, yesterday. Fans were carrying the dummy Crocodiles over their heads and in their hands, reenacting the Prabhas vs Crocodile moment in #TheRajaasaab.” (Archive)
A similar post can be seen here. (Archive)
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the claim is misleading. Of the three videos shared in the viral post, only one clip is authentic, while the other two are AI-generated and do not depict real events inside movie theatres.
Through keyword searches and reverse video analysis, NewsMeter found some media outlets, such as NDTV, Free Press Journal and Eenadu, reported on the viral clips; their coverage was based solely on social media posts without independent verification.
Analysis of the videos
Video 1
NewsMeter examined the viral clips frame by frame. In the first video, the title card for ‘The Raja Saab’ on the screen does not match the official version from the film’s teaser and trailers. Instead, the clip shows a Hindi tagline that appears as gibberish or non-standard phrasing (“शानदार अद्भुत भव्यदर्शनीय”), which does not align with any promotional material. Additionally, the movements of the fans appear unnatural and robotic, with repetitive gestures lacking fluidity.
Video 2
In the second video, inconsistencies are visible in the theatre layout itself. The seating arrangement and screen orientation appear distorted, with audience members facing different directions relative to the screen.
Lighting and shadows do not align naturally and there is noticeable visual blending between the ceiling, walls and crowd, which are common artefacts seen in AI-generated videos.
These visual anomalies strongly indicate digital fabrication rather than real footage from a theatre.
Analysis using AI tools
NewsMeter closely analysed the first two clips frame by frame and found multiple signs of artificial generation.
To further verify the findings, NewsMeter analysed the videos using AI-detection tools such as Hive Moderation and Deepfake-O-Meter. Both tools flagged the videos as AI-generated with a high confidence score, citing irregularities in motion, texture rendering and lighting consistency.
Video 3
The third video, however, is genuine.
In this clip, a fan is seen holding a dummy crocodile while recording an ongoing screening of The Raja Saab. Crucially, the background screen clearly shows the Prabhas vs crocodile sequence from the film’s trailer, confirming that the footage was captured inside an actual theatre during a real screening.
This establishes that at least one fan did bring a dummy crocodile into a theatre, likely as a playful gesture referencing the trailer scene.
While one authentic video shows a fan holding a dummy crocodile during a screening of The Raja Saab, the viral claim suggesting that multiple such incidents occurred widely across theatres is misleading. The images used by the media outlets were also taken from the AI-generated videos, providing wrong information to the readers.
Two of the three videos circulating online are AI-generated and falsely amplify the scale of the event.
Therefore, the claim is misleading, not entirely false.
