Toonpur Ka Superhero delays release to cash in on festive season audiences, upsetting Tees Maar Khan's promotional strategy. Both films now release on December 24

Toonpur Ka Superhero will now release on Christmas Eve along with Tees Maar Khan, sparking of a clash between Ajay Devgn and Akshay Kumar at the box-office, yet again after Golmaal 3 and Action Replayy.

Says an industry source, "TMK always had Dec 24 as its release date while Toonpur, a Krishika Lulla-Kumar Mangat Pathak production was slated for release, one Friday (Dec 17) while TMK, a Farah Khan-Shirish Kunder-Akshay Kumar project, had Christmas Eve (Dec 24) for its release date. Farah was informed that Toonpur would release with them as late as last week.

A source close to the TMK director says, "She was planning a solo release. She didn't want a Sawaariya-Om Shanti Om clash like last time.

Obviously, she is stunned at the turn of events. Now she will just have to work harder on her marketing and promotion.

Farah is very fond of Ajay Devgn and she doesn't want things to become controversial as they were during the Sawaariya-Om Shanti Om face-off. She wasn't expecting it at all."

Farah remained unavailable for comment. Kumar Mangat says, "It's true that we are releasing on December 24. We took the decision after conducting a survey in various schools and with children and their parents.

Toonpur is a family film and the survey said 90 per cent of the people wanted the film to be released on Christmas as there was a 10-day holiday period after that while there's only a two day weekend after December 17. Releasing it on Christmas would mean a big benefit for us."

Whose decision was it to postpone Toonpur by a week? Says Mangat, "It was combined decision taken by the team " Krishika Lulla, Ajay and me. The choice was to release on Christmas or during the summer vacations in April next year. We opted for Christmas."

Mangat is not apprehensive that TMK is releasing with it. "Tees Maar Khan is a big film but two films have come on Christmas before and have been hits like Welcome and Taare Zameen Par and Ghayal and Dil. There are many incidents like this. The audience is huge."