Himmatwala and Chennai Express clubbed for single-screen theatres

It’s Akshay Kumar vs Shah Rukh Khan! It’sChennai ExpressvsOnce Upon a Time in Mumbaai -2! A full-blown war could be smelled from that day onwards whenShah Rukh Khan announced to releaseChennai Expresson the day ofEid, August 8, alongside Akshay Kumar'sOnce Upon a Time in Mumbaai -2. Now producer UTV ofChennai Expresshas also joined the battle to edge out the opponent at any cost and decided to apply the same strategy as Yash Raj did last year withJab Tak Hai Jaan.

Single-screen theatre owners have been issued a notice from UTV that if they want to buy Devgan'sHimmatwala, which is releasing on March 27, they will have to allocate all the four shows toChennai Expressas well. Pinky Badlani of Kasturba (Malad) confirmed the news to a leading daily, "YRF has set the trend. Now, UTV is doing it. It seems they just want to kill the prospects ofOnce Upon A Time...." Badlani added more, "I will do exactly what other single screens do. I will not sit on the fence."

A leading distributor said (on request of anonymity), "Festive season or otherwise, ideally no two big films should release on the same day. Business suffers across plexes and single screens. In this case, it will all depend on how many shows each film manages to get in single screens. If UTV has its way, Balaji will lose about Rs 2.5 crore.”

Gaurav Verma, Director - India Distribution of Disney UTV, though said, "This is not true at all. We enjoy long and mutually beneficial relationships with all our exhibition partners, and as a studio we have developed these relationships over the years with a steady supply of high quality content. There is no need at all for us to link the screening of one of our films with another, especially with films of the scale and magnitude ofHimmatwalaandChennai Express." Though, the CEO of Balaji, Tanuj Garg did not want to comment as of now.