Harshada Rege (DNA; January 25, 2018)

With Padmaavat hitting the big screens on January 25, Aiyaary decided to get out of the three-way clash as Pad Man, too, was slated to open in cinemas on the same day. Team Aiyaary moved to February 9, which gave it a shot at being the solo release that week. It looked like a clash between Sidharth Malhotra and Akshay Kumar, who played warring brothers in Brothers (2015), was avoided in real life.

However, after a meeting with Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Akshay announced that team Pad Man, too, would move to February 9. This meant that the clash between Aiyaary and Pad Man was on the cards yet again. Sid made his displeasure with the situation clear in as many words.

In an interview with After Hrs, he said, “For us, our life is back to square one. We thought that we were being gracious enough and moving forward for an easy and solo release, so that more people could see our film. It was also more of a production call, and rightfully so, as numbers are affected in a way. But we were never shying away from a clash, it was purely to avoid three movies hitting the marquee on January 26.”

ALL THAT LOVE!
Sid added in a tongue-in-cheek manner, “I think there’s an immense amount of love from Pad Man team, who just want to latch on to any date that we come on and they are just not letting go. We are pretty happy and confident of our film. Now, the two movies will come on a particular date, so there’s not much that we can do.”

CLASH CALL
Initially, people in the industry were surprised that Akshay’s social drama was clashing with his long-time associate Neeraj Pandey’s espionage thriller. The two have worked on some noteworthy projects like Special 26 and Baby, and even collaborated for Naam Shabana. Both parties had maintained that there was enough space at the box office for two movies. However, that seems to have changed now.

In another interview, Sid said, “This situation could have resolved earlier, people could have stuck to their dates, respecting others’ space. I was not expecting the makers of Pad Man to release their film with us, especially the second time.” Meanwhile, Akshay has chosen not to comment on the issue and get into a war of words with his once-on-screen brother. We reached out to Akshay, but he remained unavailable for comment.