After battling many scheduling challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Aamir Khan’s Laal Singh Chaddha is finally releasing this Thursday. The superstar returns to the silver screen after a four-year hiatus with this highly-anticipated Indian adaptation of Tom Hanks’ classic blockbuster, Forrest Gump. Aamir has left no stone unturned to make it a special viewing experience for the Indian audience and is breathlessly waiting to see how the public responds to his labour of love at the box office. He is under pressure to deliver at the ticket windows and it’s probably due to this feeling of uncertainty that Aamir has asked his production team to pause pre-production on his next project, which is going to be directed by Shubh Mangal Saavdhan fame RS Prasanna.

Industry sources say that Aamir Khan is not sure anymore about doing RS Prasanna’s film, and might choose some other project if Laal Singh Chaddha fails at the box office. "It all depends on how LSC performs. Although Aamir has given his nod to Prasanna’s dramedy and the project has already gone into pre-production, he hasn’t officially announced it. LSC and Prasanna’s film have some common similarities—while the former is the journey of a dim-witted man who has a great understanding of emotions, the latter is about a basketball team made up of people with disabilities—and Aamir wants to see how audiences react to it before turning his full attention to yet another film about disabled characters. Aamir works on one film at a time and doesn’t want to commit his next two years to a project until he is "very confident about it," a source close to the actor told us.

RECOMMENDED READ: Aamir Khan hosts special screening of Laal Singh Chaddha for SGPC; members find nothing objectionable

Aamir is expected to take his final call on his next film by September-end. Although sources at Aamir Khan Productions claim that the work on RS Prasanna’s film is going on in full swing and they have even got on board Shankar-Ehsan-Loy for music, they confirm that the film has been delayed further by 2-3 months and won’t start in October as planned earlier. "And it’s because Aamir wants to see the fate of Laal Singh Chaddha before he decides on Prasanna’s film’s kismet. If the Advait Chandan directorial works, Aamir will come and announce Prasanna’s film, which is a remake of the 2018 Spanish film, Campeones. And if it fails, he will put that film on the backburner and take a break to explore other subjects for his next,” the source further said, "adding that Aamir is bouncing off ideas with filmmakers like Anurag Basu and Siddharth P. Malhotra for a possible collaboration, but nothing has materialized as things stand today. They are all believed to be waiting for LSC’s release before initiating talks with him again.”