“It would be an unnecessary clash,” said Akshay Kumar, as he came together with Sanjay Leela Bhansali to hold a joint press conference in Mumbai, to announce his decision to defer PadMan’s release to 9 February. Both Padmaavat and PadMan were slated for release on the Republic Day weekend.
In solidarity with Bhansali, Akshay said Padmaavat makers “have a reason to release it at this time, and would make better sense to postpone PadMan.”
“And I’ll tell you, we both could easily release our movies on this date. There are about 4,500-5,000 theatres… business can happen. But at the moment, the stakes of their film is much higher and he (Bhansali) is a dear friend of mine. I have done many films with him. He asked me and I went for it,” Akshay added.
Director Bhansali thanked Akshay for cooperating with him.
“Padmaavat has been made after facing a lot of difficulties, we decided on the release date of 25 January, but it was clashing with Akshay Kumar’s film PadMan, so we requested him to move the release date of his film, he agreed, and we will be grateful to him for a lifetime,” said Bhansali.
