At an musical entertainment event held in Mumbai last evening to promote the romantic song Naino Ne Baandhi from his upcoming sports biopic Gold, Akshay Kumar busted a few myths surrounding the releases of his films. So far, rather sportingly, the Bollywood superstar had always believed that another actor’s or filmmaker’s release date was sacrosanct. And he would never choose to come on a date already announced for somebody’s film out of respect for that person. But all that now seems to have changed for the actor.

In a question-and-answer session after Akshay and Mouni Roy, his female lead in Gold, had danced and sang to Naino Ne Baandhi, he was asked about the film’s release date (August 15) now being shared by John Abraham’s crime thriller Satyameva Jayate. Akshay’s reaction was sought to John’s take on the box office clash between the two action superstars this Independence Day. John, who is only the lead actor in Satyameva Jayate and not a co-producer, had said that “Akshay is a friend” and would not mind his film coming with Gold because there were enough screens for both films to share.

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Last evening, tongue firmly in cheek, Akshay responded, “Yes, John is a friend. And there are many festive release dates for Bollywood films. Like Diwali, Eid, Christmas. And I will also come on them because everybody in the industry is a friend.” The media realised that Akshay was sending a silent message to the film industry that he would no longer honour “dates” that had been unofficially reserved for other actors’ films. Like it is known Salman Khan favours Eid for all his big home productions, Ajay Devgn prefers Diwali and Aamir Khan has a thing about coming during Christmas week.

Akshay himself has been valiantly patriotic in trying to ensure that his films which have a social message or national flavour release during either Republic Day week or Independence Day. But, after what happened with Rustom in August 2016 when Mohenjo Daro released simultaneously and PadMan this January when Padmaavat was announced at the same time, the actor has seen an increasing insensitivity in the industry by filmmakers towards release dates already announced by others. So, he laughingly assured the media that he would now come on any date available because the entire industry was friends with one another!