Friday Fury: 4 Major Hindi Releases Will Jostle For Screen Space With 2 Hollywood Biggies This Friday ​, Om Puri’s Wife Opt  Out​

Crowded Fridays are no  longer an isolated occurrence.We frequently face a flurry of releases on Friday.

 But the coming Friday unleashes a seldom-witnessed fury, with four very interesting  Hindi films and 2   Hollywood biggies The Hitman’s Bodyguard and  Dark Tower, vying for attention.

Leading this week’s gallery of  eyeball grabbers is two bandook wallahs belonging to very different breeds of violence.Nawazuddin Siddiqui in  Kushan Nandy’s Babumoshai Bandookbaaz culturally and  geo-politically far removed from Sidharth Malhotra’s gun-slinging super-slicker in A Gentleman.

 But at  the  end of the day they are both trigger-happy heroes romancing sexy women, shooting down the baddies and revving up that highway in fast-flying automobiles.

A Gentleman’s co-director Raj Nidimoru sighs, “Our producers Fox-Star had announced this date(August 25)  long back. There were no other films scheduled for that Friday when we announced A Gentleman.By and by, the  others also came in for this Friday.I feel the  other films that are releasing this week are in a completely different  zone. I think every film will  have its own audience. No film gets an all-clear solo release these days.”

Ajit Thakur , who produces this week’s third major release Sniff  on behalf of Eros International feels the choices for  producers  to release their films has narrowed down markedly. “We have to release our film along with others in  the hope that the unique content—Sniff is  about a child detective—will be its USP.”

Aadar Jain who gets his big launch this Friday in Yash Raj films’ Qaidi Band expresses helplessness at the clutter of releases. “It’s not up to  me to  decide the release date.I think Yash Raj Films  would  be better able to explain the release strategy.”

 Explains trade analyst  Atul Mohan, “We had three  back-to-back big-budgeted  films Mubarakan, Jab Harry Met Sejal and Toilet Ek Prem Katha. Usually when one big film releases  the subsequent week is avoided by smaller films. But this time we had three biggies in a row which resulted in this pile. We have only 52 weeks to accommodate every film. We also have festive season beginning this week to be followed by Shraddh when  releases are avoided which will take away 2 weeks. So the mad rush.”