Salman Khan fans waiting on Maatrubhumi are going to have to wait a bit longer. The film, originally titled Battle of Galwan before getting renamed earlier this year, was supposed to be out in cinemas by now. It isn’t. And depending on how the next few weeks go, it might not arrive until 2027.
The holdup isn’t a scheduling issue or a budget problem. It’s political. Maatrubhumi is built around the 2020 India-China border conflict at Galwan, and with India-China relations warming up lately, the Ministry of Defence has reportedly flagged concerns about how the film handles China on screen. That’s not a small note to fix in editing. It’s the kind of thing that can freeze a release indefinitely.
A trade source told Bollywood Hungama that the team behind Maatrubhumi is still hoping to get it out before the year ends, but admitted the odds aren’t great. “The issues are yet to be resolved,” the source said. “Even if they are resolved soon, it will now be difficult to secure a good release slot, as most major dates have already been taken.” The source also pointed out something that’s become a bit of a signature for Salman Khan over the years: he doesn’t like clashing release dates with other films, and if he ever does, he gives the other side a heads up first. Not exactly common in an industry where date-blocking is practically a sport.
If the film does make it out in 2026, Dussehra looks like the leading window. This year Dussehra lands on Tuesday, October 20, and the day before typically plays like a bonus holiday at the box office, which could hand Maatrubhumi something close to a five-day opening weekend. An industry insider added that Ramayana is expected to move up to October 30, and after that the release calendar stays fairly empty until the last week of November. That gap is exactly the kind of opening a big-scale film like this needs.
It won’t be a clear runway, though. Rajkummar Rao’s Raftaar already has October 16 locked in, and Emraan Hashmi and Genelia Deshmukh’s Gunmaaster G9 is rumored to be eyeing the same date, though nothing’s been officially confirmed yet.
And if none of it comes together in time? Salman Khan ends up with two releases in 2027 instead of one. He’s currently shooting Vamshi Paidipally’s untitled film opposite Nayanthara, which was already slated for a 2027 release. Add a delayed Maatrubhumi to that and next year suddenly looks a lot busier for him than this one.
For now, there’s no confirmed date. Just a script stuck between a censor board and a foreign policy, and a star who’d rather wait for the right slot than force a bad one.
