He’s not in denial. He’s fully aware of the fact that this movie is a flop. The fact that his PR (to be fair it’s not just his PR, Dharma marketing is involved too) is working so hard to present this movie as a “success” is proof that he knows he’s lost his box office pull from a few years ago. He’s just trying to keep up that perception of a successful star. He’s also very insecure about his box office numbers and hates being associated with failed movies. He actually implied SD3 was a success because the producers still made money.
As for JJJ, the movie is obviously a flop. I haven’t seen BOI do so many twists and turns not to mention that this movie’s numbers aren’t good. The mere fact that we don’t even know how much it was sold to the distributors should be a big tell that it’s a flop. Is JJJ team wrong for celebrating the 100cr gross collection (Not net collections mind you, gross collections)? No. But that doesn’t make the movie not be a flop.
1