By the time Akshay Kumar’s movie ‘Rowdy Rathore’ was to be released, the actor was everywhere promoting the movie and left no stone unturned during the promotions. But Akshay Kumar has been conspicuously missing when it came to promotions of his movie ‘Joker’. His absence and lack of promotions of the movie has lead to the movie opening to empty houses all over the world today.

The reason behind Akshay Kumar distancing himself from the promotions as well as the movie itself is because the actor is disappointed with the movie the movie has turned up.

“Joker was meant to be a kids` film and that too in 3D. Akshay was really excited about it. When shooting began, Shirish assured him that though they were not shooting in the format, it will be converted to 3D during post production,” said a source to a daily.

As the movie is sci-fi, Akshay Kumar thought it would be apt to use his Hollywood contacts to do the special effects for the film. But Shirish Kunder rejected the idea.

“It was while dubbing for ‘Transformers’ that he was introduced to the special effects team and wanted ‘Joker’ to benefit from his resources,” the source said.

After watching the movie for the first time Akshay Kumar felt that final edit needed few changes. But Shirish turned down this idea as well.

“Akshay wanted some changes in the final edit. Shirish, who is an editor himself, does not like being told what to do. That`s when Akshay began to distance himself from the film,” the source added.

Akshay Kumar, who has always been good friends with Farah Khan and Shirish Kunder, felt that the couple had misused him and has swore to never work with them again.

“He has never really tomtomed about the many little things he has done for them - not even the massive discount he got them on the sprawling penthouse they recently bought and moved into. Or turning a generous blind eye to the many budgeting issues that came up while they handled production," added the friend. “But when Shirish continued to dig in his heels, he had had enough,” said a close friend of Akshay.

Trade analyst Amod Mehra said, “When a producer/hero of the film disowns the film, it sends out wrong signals. Akshay has shifted his focus to his next home-production- ‘OMG: Oh My God.’ Whatever interest exhibitors had in the film has died down. UTV has not even prevailed upon the exhibitors or demand a minimum number of shows. It is clear that even the producers are not too interested.”

If Akshay Kumar himself doesn’t like the movie that he worked hard on, what will make the audience like it?