Neeraj Pandey on Aiyaary clash with PadMan: Sidharth Malhotra and I had lunch with Akshay Kumar

Akshay’s PadMan and Neeraj’s Aiyaary are releasing on the same date.

Bollywood star Akshay Kumar’s PadMan and filmmaker Neeraj Pandey’s Aiyaary are all set to clash at the box office on January 26, 2018. Akshay and Neeraj’s partnership has yielded back-to-back successes in the form of Baby, Special 26 and Toilet: Ek Prem Katha.

At the Aiyaary trailer launch on Tuesday, Neeraj Pandey was asked about his thoughts on the box-office clash between the films and if there’s a sense of competition between him and Akshay. The director replied to the question by sharing with the media about his lunch with his Aiyaari lead actor Sidharth Malhotra, Akshay Kumar and PadMan helmer R Balki.

“What can I say about PadMan? When our film was launched, we wanted to come on January 26, 2018. That’s the journey of the film and we are looking forward to it!” said Neeraj.

When asked if he ever spoke to Akshay regarding the clash, “I’ll just answer that. About four days ago, Sidharth, me, Akshay and Balki had lunch together. That was a good lunch. We all came out smiling.”

Aiyaary is about the fall out and the subsequent face-off between two army officers, a protege (Sidharth) and a mentor (Manoj Bajpayee).

Neeraj Pandey said that the idea of Aiyaary first came to him while he was shooting for Baby more than three years ago.

“The germ of the film came when we were working on Baby. The work for the film in a way started during Baby. Even while we were shooting MS Dhoni something was going on in my head for Aiyaary,” added Neeraj.