YRF blamed for Raees vs Sultan clash !

Raees won't budge

The SRK-starrer, which was announced for Eid 2016 won't make way for Salman's Sultan, which now releases on the same day

Subhash K Jha

Last week, Shah Rukh Khan announced that Dilwale would release on December 18, the day that Sanjay Leela Bhansali had booked a long time ago for his Bajirao Mastani. Barely, had the hungama over these two film's clash died down that Yash Raj Films announced that they would release Salman Khan-starrer Sultan on the date announced by SRK for his Raees.

Affecting equations

The shocking bit is that the two superstars Shah Rukh and Salman, who recently turned friends from foes, will now be clashing at the box-office. Also, Aditya Chopra has taken this decision, which is not likely to go down well with SRK, whose next film Fan is being produced by YRF.

Feeling cheated

A source close to Raees puts the blame for this unnecessary clash on Yash Raj Films. "Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar , the producers of Raees, announced Eid as the release date three months ago. Ritesh had repeatedly verified the absence of the Salman factor this Eid. He had even spoken to Yash Raj Films about the possibility of Sultan being released for Eid in 2016 and had been assured there was no such possibility."

Why the clash

Sources close to the development feel Yash Raj's decision to release Sultan for Eid 2016 was taken after Salman's court cases went in his favour in May. "Salman told Aditya Chopra that he won't start Sultan until the court verdict in the hit-and-run case. Now that he has been given reprieve, he has green-lit Sultan and will shoot for it on a war footing," says a close friend of Salman.

Won't move

When asked to comment on the developments, Ritesh replied, "My tweet says it all." Soon after the YRF announcement, he tweeted: We had announced in February that we would release our film on Eid 2016 and we are on schedule to release it as planned.

With no sign of either mammoth project budging from the Eid slot, a Salman-SRK clash seems inevitable. Says trade analyst Komal Nahata, "If Raees and Sultan indeed clash for Eid 2016 it will be bad for both films as they will cut into each other's collections. I feel better sense will eventually prevail and the release date of one of the films will shift from Eid to another day."