Shah Rukh Khan in Dunki, Prabhas in Salaar. (courtesy: Prabhas)
Bollywood is gearing up for embracing a year-end box office clash when Shah Rukh Khan's Dunki and Prabhas' Salaar will hit the theatres at the same time. Shah Rukh Khan's Dunki will release on December 21 and Salaar will release on December 22 in theatres. Shah Rukh Khan confirmed Dunki's Christmas release at the success meet of Jawan while the release date of Salaar was postponed a couple of times. The producer of Salaar Vijay Kiragandur revealed that the release date of the film has been decided based on the astrological calculations while speaking to Bollywood Hungama. Vijay Kiragandur told Bollywood Hungama, "We announced the date based on our beliefs. So yes, we do believe in certain aspects. We always plan our dates in this manner for 10-12 years and we'll do so even in future. That's how we announced December 22 and then we didn't prepone a day though Dunki and Aquaman are coming on December 21."
Oppenheimer and Barbie - the two big films in Hollywood released on the same day this year and both the films minted a handsome amount of money at the box office. However, when it comes to Bollywood things turned ugly in the past. Karan Johar and Kajol's friendship faced a dent when KJo's directorial Ae Dil Hai Mushkil and Ajay Devgn's directorial Shivaay clashed at the box office. Karan Johar didn't let things go unnoticed when his production Yodha and Sriram Raghavan's Merry Christmas were scheduled to release on the same day initially. However, both the films changed their dates later.
Asked about these conflicts and sharing of screens, Vijay Kiragandur told Bollywood Hungama, "We don't want things to be ugly. We are already having meetings with the exhibitors and distributors. When we have a solo release, the occupancy generally will be around 60-70%. Some screens will go to Aquaman but between Salaar and Dunki, we hope to get 50-50 screens in the best scenario. In such a scenario, if an occupancy of 90-100% is achieved, it'll be a good result for both films. Even if we get more screens, the occupancy will anyway go down to 60% or 70%. What we are planning is that we should get more occupancy, even if we get fewer screens than what we would have got if Salaar was a solo release. Even Overseas, these discussions are going on. Programming is the key now and that's what we are focusing on, without getting into ugly fights (laughs)!"
The makers of Salaar - Part One Ceasefire unveiled the trailer of the film a few days back. Spanning more than 3 minutes the trailer begins with two friends. Deva (Prabhas) can be heard saying for his friend (Prithviraj Sukumaran) that he can be a "shark" or a "bait" for him as the situation demands. The trailer shows it's a story of a kingdom called Khansaar where people are fighting to get a hold over the throne. Prabhas enters the scene and he is a one-man-army when the ruling power joins hands with the Russians and Serbians. What follows are jaw-dropping action scenes in Prabhas' style leaving the viewers with an adrenaline rush.
Sharing the trailer on his Instagram feed and quoting the dialogue from the film, Prabhas wrote, "Pl𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞...𝐈...𝐊𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐥𝐲...𝐑𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭! Here's #SalaarTrailer... See you in theatres on Dec 22nd, 2023." Take a look:
Directed by KGF director Prashanth Neel, Salaar is scheduled to hit theaters on December 22 in 5 languages including Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, and Hindi. Prashanth Neel's last release KGF: Chapter 2 broke a number of records at the box office when it released in 2022.