The much-awaited film by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Love & War starring Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, and Vicky Kaushal, has been postponed. Initially scheduled for the Christmas 2025 release, Love & War will arrive on 20th March 2026. This date has created excitement among film fans because this holiday coincides with Eid 2026 and may create a huge box-office clash with Shah Rukh Khan’s well-awaited crime drama, King.
Love & War, announced in January 2024, has already generated enough hype to become one of the most eagerly anticipated films on the Bollywood horizon. Bhansali’s epic saga romance-drama-action film will have a list of stars dotted across the horizon. Even Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, and Vicky Kaushal alone should give fans enough reasons to be excited about this film.
The filmmakers recently announced that the film’s release date will now shift from Christmas 2025 to 20 March 2026-a smart move considering that the holiday coincides with Ramzan, Ram Navami, and Gudi Padwa. That is a perfect time for an expectedly enormous box-office pull.
It will only add to the major box-office clash with Shah Rukh Khan’s King, slated under the direction of Sujoy Ghosh in the same time slot. The film will be Suhana Khan’s theatrical debut alongside the father, making the fight even more interesting. With Shah Rukh Khan returning with an Eid release, after the success of Chennai Express, fans can’t wait for the face-off between two of Bollywood’s biggest stars. This classic brings back memories of 2007 when Ranbir Kapoor’s Saawariya clashed with Shah Rukh Khan’s Om Shanti Om on Diwali. Well, Shah Rukh’s film had come out victorious back then, but the Eid 2026 clash promises to be a much tougher one.
Love & War will hit floors in October 2024 and reportedly, Ranbir Kapoor will start shooting from the first week of October. Vicky Kaushal will join the sets around 10th October while Alia Bhatt who is busy shooting for her YRF Spy Universe film Alpha will be joining the team towards the end of December or early January 2025.
Love & War is being touted as a legacy project and one of Bhansali’s most ambitious films thus far, and Jio Studios produced this one. Bhansali is known for big-gish film productions with emotive storytelling; the film is aptly expected to be a visual delight with romance, drama, and great musical sequences. Industry sources already report that it is an expensive film and just at the right time to make more hype.
Meanwhile, two of the biggest releases announced at the expo-in included back-to-back Eid 2026 action movies – Love & War and King. Star power, spectacular visuals, and impressive directorial expertise seem to converge in these two vastly different yet deeply similar epic box-office showdowns that ultimately should provide one of the most thrilling spectacles in recent Bollywood history.
Source: Pinkvilla, Hindustan Times.
