It's now Sallu, Akki vs SRK in Diwali

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By: Upala KBR, Mid-Day

Akshay Kumar has finally got what he's always wanted - to take on the mighty King Khan - and that too on a big day like Diwali!

Thanks to a decision made by producer Sajid Nadiadwala yesterday, the Akshay-Salman starrer Jaan-e-Mann will now take on Riteish Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar's Don. It will be a true clash of star power:

Jaan-e-Mann stars Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar and Preity Zinta, while Don stars Shah Rukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra and Kareena Kapoor (in a special appearance).

Hurrah for holidays

Earlier, there was a clash between Don and Dhoom 2, as both were planning a Diwali release. But Dhoom 2 (a Yash Raj flim starring Abhishek Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan, Bipasha Basu and Aishwarya Rai) has now backed out of the race and will release on November 24.

Says Rupen Amlani of Ashtavinayak Films, distributor of Nadiawala's film, "The decision to release Jaan-E-Mann was taken just yesterday morning when we heard that Dhoom 2 has been postponed. With Diwali and Eid around the same time, the two movies can fit in easily. It will be a holiday period, we will also get the Muslim crowd.

The two movies can easily release at the same time. We saw the opportunity and took it."

No panga with Khan

Sahdev Ghai, distributor of the Chopra film says, "Dhoom 2 will release on November 24. The reason we postponed the release date is because there won't be sufficient time for post-production work to get completed and we don't want to release the film in a hurry."

Adds trade analyst Amod Mehra, "There is a lot of special effects and stunt sequences in Dhoom 2 which normally takes a lot of time to edit.

That could be a reason why they have postponed the film. The other reason could be because Yash Raj doesn't want to ruffle Shah Rukh's feathers by releasing their film on the same day."