Dates with destiny

Case in point being Priyanka Chopra opting out of Bharat because she wanted to get married, Katrina Kaif who replaced Priyanka in Bharat opting out of Street Dancer, Shraddha Kapoor who replaced Katrina in Street Dancer opting out of the Saina Nehwal biopic are prime examples of the musical chairs being played in upcoming movies.

In Saina’s biopic, Shraddha had already shot for an important portion of the film which will now be reshot. “In this case, T-Series is the producer of all these three films and hence the adjustment could be done without much hassle. But in other cases, it gets tough because there is not just a loss of money, but the schedules get awry. Actors also put in a lot of effort in preparation. Shraddha has played badminton for over a year and then had to get out of the film,” says a trade source. In the curious case of Rekha opting out of Fitoor, she had shot for the film and left it because she was not happy with the way the film and her role turned out and was later replaced by Tabu.

“Smriti Irani had also given her dates to Umesh Shukla for the film All Is Well but then a ministerial berth and her political commitments meant that she was out and was replaced by Supriya Pathak. Abhishek Bachchan too walked out of Paltan at the eleventh hour. There was Sonu Sood who got into an acrimonious battle with Kangana Ranaut and left Manikarnika. Sushant Singh Rajput and Kriti Sanon too left films like the recently released RAW and Lucknow Central, respectively due to date issues,” adds the source.

Recently even Parineeti Chopra reportedly embarked on the remake of The Girl On The Train after Jacqueline Fernandez opted out to do another project.
In one of the more famous replacements, Aishwarya Rai was replaced by Rani Mukerjee after Salman Khan created a ruckus on the sets of Chalte Chalte.

—Sanskriti Media