Akshay Kumar dismisses ‘absolutely untrue’ rumours that he’s attending a public event amid pandemic

The person had written that Akshay will be travelling to Lucknow to attend an awards show. While the film industry is functioning, further measures have been enforced to curb the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.

As much as I would love to visit Lucknow soon, this news is absolutely untrue. https://t.co/XfJ6yqo6U2

— Akshay Kumar (@akshaykumar) January 14, 2022

Faced with a third wave of the pandemic, several states have issued new directives for movie theatres. This has resulted in many high-profile releases being postponed. Recent victims include the Shahid Kapoor-starrer Jersey, and director SS Rajamouli’s big-budget period film RRR, starring Jr NTR and Ram Charan. Both films were in the final stretches of their promotional tours.

Ranveer Singh-starrer 83 was the final major Bollywood film to be released in theatres before the third wave and was significantly impacted by the spread of the virus.

Akshay himself has had two releases diverted to streaming platforms due to the pandemic. Laxmii was among the biggest titles to be moved to streaming back in 2020. He followed it up with the spy film BellBottom, which got a limited theatrical release earlier this year. His much-awaited action film Sooryavanshi managed to get away mostly unscathed when it released in theatres in November. But his latest film, Atrangi Re, also debuted online. Producer Bhushan Kumar told Pinkvilla in an interview that sensing a window, they had tried cancelling the streaming release in favour of a threatrical release, but it was too late by then.