Covid-19 has ensured that Salman Khan can’t meet his ‘commitment’ to revive cinemas with ‘Radhe’

In a Zoom conversation with journalists on Monday, Salman Khan let out one of the Hindi movie trade’s worst-kept secrets: his new release Radhe: Your Most Wanted Bhai was going to come a cropper at the Indian box office.

“I apologise to cinema owners who were hoping to earn profits with the release of this film,” said Khan, according to News18. “We waited as long as we could, hoping that this pandemic would end and we would be able to release in theatres all over the country. But that did not happen.”

Radhe was aiming for a multi-platform release on March 13, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramzan. According to the original plan, Radhe was to be released in theatres as well as on the Zee5 streaming platform on a pay-per-view option.

Although several states announced lockdowns early in April, others such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Uttarakhand and Gujarat excluded theatres from the list of establishments that had to stop opoerations. At least on paper, these cinemas were open. Though they didn’t have any films to play (the last release was the English-language Mortal Kombat on April 23), they hoped to resume business with the latest Salman Khan movie.

With a lockdown or some form of restriction in force in every single state…

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