Shah Rukh Khan, Ajay Devgan & Akshay Kumar’s Diwali Clash

Come Diwali, and if everything goes as per schedule, three big movies will lock horns at the box-office: Shah Rukh Khan’s untitled Yash Chopra film, Ajay Devgan’s Son Of Sardar and Akshay Kumar’s Khiladi 786.

While Shah Rukh Khan and Ajay Devgan have already tasted blood with two of their previous films making Rs. 100 crore, there’s no doubt that both of the heroes want to repeat the feat this Diwali. And as for Akshay Kumar, the Khiladi is still waiting to enter that exclusive club.

Releasing big banner movies simultaneously at the box-office hasn’t done much good. In 2009, the Sanjay Dutt and Ajay Devgan starrer All The Best clashed with Akshay Kumar and Sanjay Dutt’s Blue at the windows. No marks for guessing which of them sunk without a trace.

Similarly, two bigwigs clashed at the windows when Sanjay Leela Bhansali released his Saawariya alongside Farah Khan’s Om Shanti Om in September 2007. While the newcomers Ranbir Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor were left to fend for themselves in the blue background, it was the Deepika Padukone and Shah RukhKhan starrer which laughed all the way to the bank.

But it looks like production houses have learnt a lesson after sparks flying at the windows, and most films now categorically look for safe dates to release their films rather than eat into each others’ profits. It is almost an unsaid rule that big banner films will not release together with so much competition and the problem of accommodating them in screens.

Of the films set to fight it out at the box-office this Diwali – Yash Chopra’s untitled film, Son Of Sardar and Khiladi 786 – at least one of these films will have to shift to an earlier or later date.

The important question is: Who will blink first?