Following her maternity Aishwarya Rai had left acting in movies for a while but over the last few years has made a couple of movies in what has not exactly been the most successful of comebacks.
There was Jazbaa in 2015, a big flop. And in 2016 it was followed by Sarbjit, yet another debacle. That same year there was however Ae Dil Hai Mushkil which was a hit but then she only had a cameo in it.
The flops notwithstanding, Aishwarya has enough stature to not be out of work. And so her next is going to be a movie called Fanney Khan for which she has just started shooting. But there was a curious news over it which said the movie is planned for release during the Eid holidays next year. The producers confirmed it and the reasoning they gave was that the main hero’s character is a Muslim and so the timing made sense. There is only issue. Salman Khan’s Race 3 is also said to be coming out at the same time. Eid is a period when all his big releases are planned and he has owned that space for years.
Other filmmakers stay away because they don’t want to compete with him. If the Aishwarya movie releases in competition, it might decidedly lead to a tsunami of publicity. Salman and Aishwarya had a famous romantic relationship which went sour with the dirty linen being washed in public for a long time. Salman has made his peace with all his ex-girlfriends and is still good friends with them. But he and Aishwarya pointedly ignore each other even though it has been 15 years since the break-up.
Their movies clashing would mean relentless questions from the media. The publicity might however lead to a lot of footfalls in theatres for both releases. Aishwarya also made news recently when her husband Abhishek Bachchan had a run in with a photographer. The couple had been coming out of a party when a usual bevy of paparazzi started clicking them. Abhishek thought one of them had shot Aishwarya’s photo from an inappropriate angle and spoke to him. The photographer however clarified that it had been a regular photo. And the matter ended there but not before a video of the incident went online.