After much deliberation, Salman Khan’s Maatrubhumi has locked December 4 as its theatrical release date. The announcement sets the stage for an interesting box-office clash, with films starring Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan arriving in cinemas in the same month. Salman initially planned to release Maatrubhumi on November 20, but “that left too little time for promotions”.

“It would have also cut short the box-office run of Ramayana: Rise Of A Legend. Salman wanted the film to have a month-long run window,” informs a trade source.

While one hurdle is out of the way, the new release date is expected to throw up distribution challenges. Trade analysts believe screen allocation could become tricky, particularly as Maatrubhumi will now compete with Shraddha Kapoor’s Eetha.

Interestingly, Jio distributes both films, making the screen-sharing dynamics more complicated. “It is a tightrope. Eetha has buzz, but Maatrubhumi is a Salman Khan film which will be a massy release,” says trade analyst Taran Adarsh.

Screen allocation aside, December is already packed with big-ticket releases. “It’s a problem of surplus,” Adarsh says. “World over big films release in the Christmas month. There’s a 19-day gap between Shah Rukh Khan’s King [December 24] and Maatrubhumi which is a big enough gap. Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three are both releasing [on December 18], but the target audience of the two films are different. Salman’s film will have a stronger presence in single screens and the rest depends on the movie itself. The film has a timely anti-war message which will echo with everyone given the ramifications of war the world is facing,” he explains.

SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY is closing in on the 500 crore nett mark as it hits 475 crore nett plus in three weeks. Like AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER fell a little short of 400 crore nett, this film may fall a little short of 500 crore nett. But these are just pointless benchmarks for the media today as it hardly matters if its 490 or 500 crore.

The biggest takeaway from this will be is it will make it difficult for a big Hindi film to release this Christmas as AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY is a bigger film than SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY. KING is due for release for Christmas and obviously huge numbers will be expected. But its pretty much impossible to have any chance to meet those expectations if you release with AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY looking at the figures of SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY and where it has accumulated these collections from.

AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY will also be affected but there the studio will hardly care and India is not so important in the bigger scenario. The problem will be that the best markets of KING, be it South and the bigger centres will be the best markets for DOOMSDAY as well. If the Hindi film was for Gujarat, CI Rajasthan or even Punjab, then it would be lesser of an issue but its not the case here as these will be the under performers for KING and AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY.

At the moment, KING is set to arrive on Christmas but logically it looks pretty much impossible unless you take the call that AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY will fall flat but no one can do that. There is also DUNE: PART THREE on the same day and again its best markets will be same as KING and AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY. A smaller Hindi film with lesser expectations targeting the Hindi mass belts can come but not a big budget film like KING. Basically KING should not come but they way this industry is functioning today, it does make some very bad decisions.