In these extraordinary times, can a film afford to walk into a possibility of a bloodbath? Two Ajay Devgn films, the S.S. Rajamouli-helmed RRR and Boney Kapoor’s Maidan, belong to the legion that notched up monumental losses during the lockdown.

SSR is the director of lavish, technically creative fantasies like Baahubali. A Rs 350 crore period action drama set during the British Raj, RRR is led by star kids N.T. Rama Rao Jr, Chiranjeevi’s son Ram Charan and Alia Bhatt, with Ajay in an “extended cameo”. Due to the pandemic, RRR went from a June 2020 to a January 2021 Pongal release before being pushed further.

Directed by Amit Sharma of Badhaai Ho fame, Ajay plays coach Syed Abdul Rahim in Maidan which harks back to the golden era of Indian football (1952-62). Requiring spectacular sets and crowds, this solo Devgn-starrer, co-starring Priya Mani, also comes with a hefty price tag of over Rs 100 crore.

Last year this time, Boney had erected a set costing around Rs 10 crore on a multi-acre football field, with makeup rooms, restrooms and a monitor room where an eight-camera set-up could be coordinated. Approximately 50 technicians and players from Japan, Europe and other places were flown into Mumbai for a 35-40 day schedule in March-April when the lockdown was announced. Nobody foresaw a seven-month closure. Notwithstanding the ticking meter, the hopeful producer held on until May but with the rains around the corner, he had to take a heart-pounding call and dismantle his set.

It’s being erected again. It’ll be a wrap for Maidan when the remaining 30 per cent — featuring eight international football matches — will be shot in March-April. Meticulously planned, Maidan confidently announced a Dussehra release. Imagine the rude awakening this week when Boney found that RRR too had decided on Dussehra. Why would RRR (roudram ranam rudhiram or rage, war, blood) want a box-office battle and live up to its name? The release of an SSR film is a festival by itself, it does not require the benefits of a holiday.

Films have clashed before — Sunny Deol’s Ghayal and Aamir Khan’s Dil in 1990, Gadar and Lagaan in 2001, Om Shanti Om and Saanwariya in 2007, Dilwale and Bajirao Mastani in 2015.

But 2021 is a year like no other. Until the efficacy of a vaccine downs masks forever, theatre-going will be lean, mean and tricky. It’s a time when filmmakers licking their wounds, should not be deliberately hurting each other. It’s a time that calls for brotherhood and not for a bloodbath.

And Ajay knows what a bloodbath is all about. In June 2002, his The Legend of Bhagat Singh, superbly crafted by Rajkumar Santoshi, had walked into a clash manufactured by a seething Sunny who wanted the director to cast Bobby as the revolutionary hero. Deol’s hastily cobbled film couldn’t hold a candle to Ajay’s far superior product but it inflicted the intended damage and the Ajay-starrer bled.

Today, a wiser Ajay won’t want to wrestle a biggie at the box office. To repeat, not in these troubled times for sure.

It was Maidan that announced its release date ages ago, making it unfair for RRR to lock the same date and lock horns with another producer. But RRR will not step back and Boney is equally determined not to blink.

But SSR and Boney have been on opposite sides of the fence before. In 2017, SSR had publicly heaved a sigh of relief that Sridevi’s “exorbitant demands” (five business class tickets, a whole floor in a five-star hotel, kids’ holidays to be factored in, all conveyed to the producers by Boney) had compelled him to drop her and sign Ramya as Sivagami in Baahubali, a choice that had proved fortuitous for the film. Dismissing it as untrue, Sri had retaliated that if she were an actress who made such demands, her career would have wound up a long time ago. Sri is no longer around. But Boney and Rajamouli remain in a face-off in the same maidan.

Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and author