Mission Mangal-Saaho clash: Is Akshay Kumar afraid of locking horns with Prabhas?

Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar does not want his upcoming movie Mission Mangal clash with Prabhas' Saaho at the box office and is said to be considering on advancing its release by a week.

Mission Mangal deals with the real-life story of the Indian Space Research Organisation's Mars Orbiter Mission. Vikram Bhatt has written the script for the movie, which is directed by Jagan Shakti and produced by Akshay Kumar and R Balki. It stars an ensemble cast of Akshay Kumar, Vidya Balan, Taapsee Pannu, Nithya Menen, Sharman Joshi and Sonakshi Sinha.

Having wrapped up its shoot earlier this year, the makers announced to release Mission Mangal in theatres on August 15. Taapsee tweeted in February, "End of an another beautiful journey. #MissionMangal comes to an end for 'Kritika Aggarwal' With such wonderful actors together in one frame it was truly an experience to treasure and cherish. 15-08-19 will be the celebration of this super power called India: @akshaykumar."

The buzz in the industry is that the makers are having a second thought about releasing Mission Mangal on August 15. The reason is that two other big-ticket movies like Saaho starring Prabhas and Shraddha Kapoor and Batla House starring John Abraham will hit the screens on the same date. The makers do not want to risk themselves as the stakes are really high on the Akshay Kumar starrer.

"The makers of Mission Mangal are thinking of preponing the film and looking forward to release the film on August 9, 2019, instead. Since there are three releases on Independence Day – John Abraham's Batla House, Mission Mangal and Prabhas' multilingual Saaho – and none of them has budged as of now, the makers are planning to prepone by a week. They plan to make the official announcement shortly," a movie portal quoted a source as saying.

Saaho is an action thriller film that is made with a mega budget of Rs 300 crore. It happens to be the Prabhas' next film after the release of Baahubali 2 the historic success of which has generated a massive hype and curiosity about his latest film. It is shot simultaneously in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu and also dubbed and released in Malayalam and a few other languages.

The promos of Saaho have doubled the viewers' curiosity and excitement over its release. Not much is known of about its pre-release business, but the trade experts feel that the theatrical rights of all its versions will easily fetch more than Rs 400 crore to the makers. The distributors will have to book a record number of screens to recover their investments in the film.

This may lead to scarcity of cinema halls to Mission Mangal distributors of which may have to adjust with minimum screens and may not get important cinema halls. On the other hand, the movie will also lose out a huge chunk of the audience due to the release of Saaho. Hence, it is a wise decision from the makers to advance its release by a week and save the distributors from suffering losses.

Mission Mangal absolutely lacks hype and attention, as the makers are yet to reveal any of its promos like first look or teaser. Back on November 5, 2018, Akshay Kumar had released a photo introducing its ensemble cast on his Instagram account. The makers need to release some of its promos immediately to garner some attention and create a buzz about its release.

Akshay Kumar had captioned the photo with, "Proud and excited to bring the story of India's Mars Mission, #MissionMangal to you. Coincidentally the mission was launched on this very date, 5th Nov. 2013. Meet the team and do share your best wishes for our shubh mangal journey. Shoot begins soon @foxstarhindi @sharmanjoshi #KirtiKulhari @taapsee @balanvidya @aslisona @nithyamenen."