At a time when most Bollywood biggies avoid a direct clash at the box office, Anil Kapoor and John Abraham's two new films  'Race 2' and 'Shootout at Wadala', are all set to release within a week of each other next January.

Date drama

Incidentally, John and Anil star in both films. In Sanjay Gupta's encounter flick set in the late 1970's and early '80s, Anil plays Isaque Bhagwan while John plays the don Manya Surve. The other is Abbas-Mustan's racy sequel to their 2008 thriller, also featuring Saif Ali Khan and Deepika Padukone. While the former is scheduled to release on January 18, the latter is slotted on January 25, to make the most of the Republic Day weekend.

The big overlap

A well-placed industry source close to both the actors tell, "They’re conscious about maintaining a considerable gap between two films. Moreover, they’re cautious to avoid the promotion of one overlapping with that of another. Meanwhile, Abbas-Mustan's film releasing a week after Sanjay's makes things look a tricky for them."

Also, both being quite big films and that too the early birds of the new year, there could be a possibility of them affecting each other’s business. Besides, neither producer would be willing to re-schedule their respective release.

No choice?

As he explains, "Already, Ekta Kapoor has deferred the release of her Sanjay Gupta directed film by over a month. Initially, it was scheduled to open in cinemas on December 7. But with Sanjay's police case (vis-a-vis the invite for the launch of the film) delaying the shoot and Aamir Khan's suspense thriller postponed to November 30 has left Ekta with no choice but to push their film's release to mid-January next year."

At the same time, the Abbas-Mustan thriller too has been delayed, reportedly owing to Saif prioritising his home-production, 'Agent Vinod'. As our source elaborates, “Initially, producer Ramesh Taurani was keen to release it in end November. Now he has decided to release the film before the Republic Day weekend." What remains to be seen is which producer will blink first. The race is on!