Raaz 3D

Plot

The story revolves around Shanaya (Bipasha Basu), an actress at the height of her success. She gets offered the best roles and wins all the awards she is nominated for. In addition, she also has a passionate affair with a handsome director named Aditya (Emraan Hashmi). This all ends when a younger actress, Sanjana (Esha Gupta) makes her film debut. In place of Shanaya, Sanjana comes into spotlight and begins to snatch away her awards. Suddenly, Shanaya seems forgotten and everybody only wants to work with Sanjana. Soon enough, Shanaya sees her career fading away and her envy slowly becomes craziness. She begins to turn to black magic and makes it her goal in life to destroy Sanjana's career and make her the pain of loss.

She seeks help of her uncle sonu (Sunil Dhariwal), a tantrik who helps her to practice black magic and calls upon an evil entity, Tara Dutt (Manish Chowdhary). She asks him to make Sanjana's life a living hell. Tara agrees to help haunt and torture Sanjana until she becomes suicidal. He asks Shanaya to give her a black poison through a person she trusts. Shanaya seduces Aditya to do it for her and whenever he feels guilty, she makes him accept again. Aditya, whose sympathy for Sanjana has turned into love, leaves Shanaya and refuses to listen her any more. Now Shanaya must work on her own to defeat the power of love.

Somehow, to try to end Aditya and Sanjana's love triangle, Shanaya hatches a plan by befriending Sanjana in order to poison her which Aditya gets suspicious about. At a movie premiere, Shanaya reveals that she actually hid the poison in the chocolate basket she gave to Sanjana earlier. In the bathroom, Sanjana is attacked by a swarm of moths that cause her to strip naked of her dress and run back into the party, thus getting exposed by the paparazzi. Her career is ultimately ruined as the public wrongly believed this to be a deliberate publicity stunt of hers. Aditya takes her to the Hospital and finds out that Shanaya was behind this. In rage, Aditya visits Shanaya's house and damages her things, taking away the last bit of the poisonous water. Agitated, Shanaya seeks Tara Dutt's help again, wanting to kill Sanjana. Tara Dutt tells Shanaya that life and death are in God's hands and that to fight God he'll need her life force. He tells Shanaya that she has to have sex with him to enable Tara to become powerful, to which Shanaya agrees. At the hospital, with the help of the doctor and a saint, Aditya goes into the spirit world to fight Tara Dutt, defeating him and rescuing Sanjana's soul. Back in the real world, Shanaya suffers damage as a result of the fight between Tara Dutt and Aditya and attempts to kill Aditya and Sanjana, only to meet failure. Aditya protects Sanjana from the defeated Shanaya who vows that she will remain a star and commits suicide by pouring acid on her head causing her skin to melt to death. Later, the media puts Sanjana off the hook as they conclude her 'publicity stunt' was a result of a nervous breakdown she had due to a lot of stress. However Aditya turns off the TV, not bothering on that, and focuses more on spending his time with Sanjana.

Cast

Casting

The original choice for the female lead of the film was Jacqueline Fernandez, but she had later dropped out due to not wanting to establish herself as a Bollywood sex symbol, as she was uncomfortable with a scene where cockroaches attack her and she had to be topless in front of 300 people. Fernandez was later replaced with Jannat 2 debutant, Esha Gupta. Bipasha Basu(main female lead and antagonist) will be playing the role of an actress who is a "prisoner of fame". Actor Dino Morea and actress Kangana Ranaut, who were a part of Raaz and Raaz - The Mystery Continues respectively are not a part of the film.Emraan Hashmi will be playing the male lead.

Filming

The film began shooting on 29 January 2012, director Vikram Bhatt explained how confident he is that the film should be completed sometime in Summer 2012 and that Raaz 3 is amongst his most important films.

Trailer launch

The Raaz 3 trailer was originally scheduled to be attached with the prints of Rohit Shetty's Bol Bachchan on 6 July 2012. However, it was delayed multiple times due to censoring. The theatrical trailer was officially launched on 30 July 2012 for the media, as confirmed by actress Bipasha Basu. Despite being widely speculated that it would be released to the public also, this was proven false. Later, the theatrical trailer was unveiled for the public as it was released online a day later on 31 July 2012. The theatrical trailer will also be in theatres on 3 August 2012 with Pooja Bhatt's Jism 2, as they are both under the Vishesh Films banner.

Marketing

Raaz 3 was promoted on the Sony TV show C.I.D. Bipasha Basu and Esha Gupta promoted the film by making an appearance on a special episode of CID, which aired on 2 September 2012.

Although, the film was originally planned to release on 31 August 2012 alongside Barfi! and Joker, it was later delayed to avoid clashing with any other big film. Raaz 3 was banned for release in UAE, although is being kept under review for the adult content included in the film.

Soundtrack

Films music is composed by Jeet Ganguly & Rashid Khan while lyrics are penned by Rashid Khan, Sanjay Masoomm, Kumaar. Although "Deewana Kar Raha Hai" song is credited to Rashid Khan, the music is copied from "Ana Law Azeto" song by Egyptian singer Mohamed Hamaki.

Release

Raaz 3D released in India and overseas on 7 September 2012. Raaz 3D is India's second-ever 3D horror movie. The movie released in stereoscopic 3D, Imax 3D and 3D worldwide. There are more 3D prints of the movie than its 2D version. Raaz 3D is the biggest release for an Emraan Hashmi film as it released on over 2000 screens in India, including in its 3D format. This movie is Emraan Hashmi's first ever 3D movie. The movie received an Adult Certificate from the Censor Board of India without any cuts.

Critical reception

The movie received mixed reviews from critics. Critics pointed out that the only saving grace of the movie was Bipasha. Taran Adarsh gave it 3.5/5 stars, commenting "If you are an enthusiast of supernatural thrillers/horror movies, RAAZ 3 should be on your list of 'things to do and watch' this weekend. Go, get ready to be spooked!" Bollywood3 awarded it 3.25/5 stars and wrote," On the whole, Raaz 3 is one movie which has everything going its way. Gritty screenplay, awesome songs and mature performances are sure shot plus points. On the other hand it would be interesting to see how family audience, who love watching popcorn entertainment respond to this film. To those who love edge of the seat horror thrillers, Raaz 3 is one film which is highly recommended. Go buy yourself a ticket and experience the thrill in 3D." Madhureeta Mukherjee of The Times Of India gave it 3/5 stars while writing, "For all those who want to move over from the Ramsay Bros... go watch 'Raaz 3' in 3D, at your own risk. But don't take it to your grave." Ananya Bhattacharya of Zee News gave it 3/5 stars and stated that"Watch 'Raaz 3' for Bipasha and its 3D factor."Independent Bollywood gave 3 out of 5 stars and quoted "Some real original scares and chills this time with memorable performances." IBNLive also gave it 3/5 stars calling it a good horror film.

Subhash K. Jha of IANS gave 2 out of 5 stars saying, "It's Bipasha who holds together the feverish proceedings. She delivers a full-bodied gutsy performance." Udita Jhunjhunwala of businessofcinema.com said, "Bhatt gets the rhythm of the suspense-building wrong, going all too rapidly from grotesque decapitation to a kiss and song scene. It does not help that the acting is also at different levels. Most of the burden to convince rests on Basu's fit shoulders – and she does. You do believe that she is menacing and wicked."

India

Raaz 3 took a good opening of around 50% at multiplexes and 65–70% in single screens on average. The opening at single screens later picked up to an excellent occupancy of 70%–100% over the noon and matinees shows. Raaz 3 went on to collecting approx. ₹105.0 million (US$1.6 million) on its opening day, thus becoming the sixteenth film ever to cross the ₹100 million (US$1.6 million) mark on the opening day itself. The film then went on to collecting approx. ₹112.5 million (US$1.8 million) on its second day. The film then collected approx. ₹140 million (US$2.2 million) on its third day, taking its opening weekend total to ₹357.5 million (US$5.6 million), thus making it the sixth biggest weekend grosser of 2012 for a Bollywood release. Raaz 3 had a huge first week where it had collected ₹516.9 million (US$8.1 million). Raaz 3 collected ₹182.5 million (US$2.8 million) nett in its second weekend taking its ten-day collection to ₹600 million (US$9.4 million) nett. It had collected ₹134.8 million (US$2.1 million) in its second week and ₹20.4 million (US$320,000) in its third week to make a total of ₹672.1 million (US$10 million) domestically. The film ultimately grossed ₹674.1 million (US$11 million) domestically and ₹970 million (US$15 million) worldwide. Box Office India declared the film as a Super Hit.

Overseas

Raaz 3 did not do as well overseas, as it approximately collected around US$1 million (₹55 million) plus in ten days. The film was not released in the UAE, which has been noted to have hit it hard, as it could have been the film's best International market and added another $250,000 plus in revenue. Raaz 3 was declared average by box office India. Hossing However,it became the highest grossing Emraan Hashmi film in the overseas.

Reboot

A fourth film in the series, titled Raaz Reboot released on 16 September 2016 .