John Abraham loves to pitch his releases against purported blockbusters.Perhaps this gives his projects a sense of size. For Eid 2021 in May, John’s Satyamev Jayate will be pitched against Salman Khan’s Radhe: India’s Most Wanted Bhai.Which seems like a very foolish thing to do at a time when the movie theatres are struggling for survival after the pandemic.
As a leading producer who has worked with Salman says, “Why opt for Eid when he(John Abraham) knows it is Salman who normally comes to the theatres on Eid? This game of one upmanship is ugly and totally unwanted.”
As ugly and unwanted as the clash between S D Rajamouli’s RRR and Boney Kapoor-Amit Sharma’s Maidaan which is scheduled for Dussehra 2021 and which has left Boney Kapoor fuming. He told me he found Rajamouli’s move to release RRR on the same day as his Maidaan to be “highly unethical”.
John seems to enjoy such boxoffice clashes. In 2018,the first film in Satyamev Jayate series had been released alongside Akshay Kumar’s Gold and in 2019 John’s Batla House had clashed with Akshay’s Mission Mangal.
It is one thing to pitch films against one another during normal times. But now when the very survival of the movie business is at stake create a totally unnecessary bottle neck?