“Akshay Kumar abandons Joker’s promotions”

Akshay Kumar seems to have abandoned Shirish Kunder’s fantasy film,
Joker. The lead actor and co-producer of the film is nowhere to be seen at the film’s promotions. Only Sonakshi Sinha, who plays the female lead, and Chitrangda Singh, who features in an item number, are present at most events.
Of course, in the past too, lead actors have stayed away from the
promotion of their films, but only when they were busy shooting for
another film at the time. But, Akki is very much around, and making
other appearances such as at the finale of a children’s dance reality
show and for his other film, Oh My God, which is releasing much later. At both instances, he chose not to mention a word about Shirish’s film.
“Akshay was not happy with Shirish’s depiction of the story since the
very beginning and so, he has now left the project alone. He does not
want to associate with it,” says a source from the film’s unit.
Meanwhile, Shah Rukh Khan has jumped to help ‘good friends’ Farah
and Shirish. On August 16, the makers sent two ‘aliens’ to Shah Rukh Khan’s bungalow Mannat. “This is not somebody else’s film. It’s Farah’s
and Shirish’s. They’ve been my friends for years. I’m her friend which is
why I’m doing this, why would I do it otherwise? She requested me
and I think it’s an interesting concept,” SRK was quoted as saying when
asked why he was part of the promotions even though he was caught
in an infamous brawl with Shirih not so long ago. While Shirish was unavailable for comment, Farah denied differences
with Akki. “All is well with Akshay. It is a new strategy. We are trying
to do it differently.” A spokesperson from the makers, UTV, said, “Aliens
are the heroes of our film so we wanted them to stay in focus. Also,
Akshay and Sonakshi heavily promoted Rowdy Rathore together so
we did not want their last film to overpower this one.”

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