It was in November 2012, when Bollywood witnessed the ugly spat that took place between Ajay Devgn Ffilms and Yash Raj Films during the release of their films – Son Of Sardaar and Jab Tak Hai Jaan. Who can forget that conflict? A legal war between both the production houses, where YRF was blamed for apparently forcing the exhibitors and blocking the screens in advance when they had sold Ek Tha Tiger. At the end, ADF lost the case; Both the movies made more than Rs 100 crores business at the Box Office.
Now, it seems there might be a recurrence of the similar scenario during the release of upcoming 2 big ticket movies – Rohit Shetty’s Chennai Express and Milan Luthria’s Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai 2.
Well, there is no legal case filed here yet, however, our little birdie chirped that UTV, who is releasing Himmatwala starring Ajay Devgn this month, is apparently trying to book single screen for its next release – Chennai Express, starring Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone.
Balaji Motion Pictures’ Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai 2, starring Akshay Kumar, which is apparently scheduled to release on the same date, might have to face the screen crunch issues at the Box Office. However, nothing has been confirmed yet and neither parties have spoken about this. All we can do is to wait and watch when the official release dates of the films are announced!
But, if at all this happens, a very interesting connection we would like to bring up to your notice is that: It was indirectly SRK and Ajay Devgn as the leading faces who fought the earlier battle. While, now, in this current scenario it is Ajay’sHimmatwala and SRK’s Chennai Express, whose films belong to the same production house i.e. UTV. And this time the opponent is Balaji’s OUTIM2 starring Akshay.
What is more interesting here is that Akshay Kumar starred in UTV’s Rowdy Rathore, which garnered more than Rs 100 crore in UTV’s kitty.