The image on left was posted on Twitter by Kajol.
There may be a mega box office storm brewing at the end of this year. It appears that both Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol's
Dilwale, directed by Rohit Shetty, and Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone's
Bajirao Mastani, directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, have booked December 18 as their big Friday.
The Christmas box office is usually reserved for Aamir Khan, who has released
PK and
Dhoom: 3 two Christmases in a row - or to be accurate, a week or so before Christmas to fully cash in on the holiday spirit. In the absence of an Aamir Khan movie this year, December 18 is up for grabs and may see a clash of titans. While Mr Bhansali locked the release date for his magnum opus some time back, Shah Rukh only just announced his film would see light of day on December 18, along with a first look of himself and Kajol in the film, on social media platforms.
SRK tweeted:
Dilwale, which also stars Varun Dhawan and Kriti Sanon, has been co-produced by SRK's Red Chillies Entertainment.
There's a whiff of deja vu about this impending and almighty collision because on November 9, 2007, SRK's
Om Shanti Om battled the Bhansali-directed
Saawariya, defeating it by a heavy margin. The dramatis personae of the time had also included Deepika Padukone, who was making her debut in
Om Shanti Om. If the clash takes place this year, she will be on the other side, in a film helmed by SRK's
Devdas director. Relations between SRK and Mr Bhansali have reportedly been strained in the past.
So will history repeat itself? May be not.
While it is true that Mr Bhansali picked the release date for
Bajirao Mastani a long time back, unforeseen events such as Ranveer's shoulder injury and the surgery that followed may have disrupted the time table.
Also, the
Black filmmaker is reportedly not satisfied with the lavani sequence starring Deepika and Priyanka Chopra, touted as the version 2.0 of the famous
Dola Re dance-off between Madhuri Dixit and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in
Devdas. Mr Bhansali now apparently wants to reshoot certain portions of the song, which will take place once the entire film has been taken care of.
All this may put distance between the release dates of the two films and fans may not be forced to have to choose.
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