If there’s one thing the film industry thinks is worth fighting for, that’s release date on public holidays in India. Rakesh Roshan announced way back that his film ‘Kaabil’ will be releasing on Republic Day 2017, which is on January 25th. Shah Rukh Khan was supposed to have his film ‘Raees’ release on Eid this year, but due to Salman’s film releasing on the same date, he postponed the release to January 25th. Now since Rakesh Roshan already secured that date first, he thought it’s really unethical of Shah Rukh and his producers to pounce on that date too.
Two films with different stars releasing on the same day mean less money coming in for both films. If ‘Kaabil’ or ‘Raees’ got a solo release, there’s a huge chance of recovering its investment money, but that’s the problem. Shah Rukh is known to do this, he did this with Shirish Kunder’s debut film and with Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s ‘Saawariya’.
He won both battles but lost so bad when he decided to go against Sanjay again by releasing his ‘Dilwale’ on the same day that ‘Bajirao Mastani’ released. We all know what happened to that battle. Now with ‘Kaabil’, Shah Rukh decided to come down his high horse and meet Rakesh privately to solve this issue.
He met him late at night and even went on Twitter afterward to claim how good of a friend Rakesh Roshan is. But even that didn’t make Rakesh change his film’s release date. Instead, Rakesh chose to give an interview to say what he wanted to about this whole fiasco. He sounded so mad. Mad enough to claim that Hrithik’s contemporaries are Salman Khan and Aamir Khan, not Shah Rukh Khan! Here’s how it all goes down.
Rakesh Roshan Interview on Raees and Kaabil Clash
Rakesh Roshan on the clash
I had tried my best (to talk to SRK and Raees makers) but then they thought that it is my weakness. But that is not my weakness. They took it the other way. They thought I am scared and all. But it is not like that. It is just my knowledge of films because I am in this business for 30-40 years and I know what happens when two big films come. For Hrithik, I am not worried at all. Hrithik is not that weak. His contemporaries are Aamir Khan and Salman Khan and they have crossed 300 crores. Sultan has crossed and Dangal will cross, because Aamir has made a good film. But since we are coming with Raees, both the films cannot cross 200 crores. It will affect both the films. Since I have made the film at a very tight budget, so even if my film does 100 crore, then also we will be in profit.
Rakesh on how bad it is for both films to release on the same date
Both are jumping into fire, not in water. In water, you can survive, in fire nobody will survive. It just remains to be seen who will get burnt more. Both are good films, both are looking good. I know about myself but I heard even Raees is a very well made film. Coming together is jumping into a well of fire. So they’re intelligent people they must be having something up their sleeve which I have no idea. What with my experience personally as a producer and director is you can tell a blind man that there’s a well in front of you, don’t go, he’ll divert.