Shahid Kapoor was supposed to start filming for Maneesh Sharma‘s next film early this year, but due to the director’s back injury, the project had been put on hold. Now, just as shooting was supposed to start in full-swing, there seems to be bad news: Shahid has pulled out from the project entirely. Here’s why.
Apparently, the film has been delayed yet again – even though shooting was supposed to begin in about a week, it has now been pushed to October. The issue here is that Shahid has several films lined up in a row – Prabhu Deva‘s Namak, Rajkumar Santoshi‘s Phata Poster Nikla Hero, and two other films – one with Bejoy Nambiar (Shaitaan), and apparently one with Neeraj Pandey (A Wednesday). Since the dates are clashing, Shahid had no choice but to pull out from Maneesh’s film, though it looks like it’s on good terms, since the producers understood the situation Shahid was in. They have reportedly promised him another film next year, when his schedule should be a bit clearer.
While there has been no official word from Shahid yet, his PR representative tweeted late last night with only one word: “True.” This was around the time the news had just broken and several fans were confused at this recent development. This is unfortunate news for two reasons – one, he missed out on working with Vishal Bhardwaj again for Matru Ki Bijli Ka Mandola, since he had committed dates to Maneesh when the film was offered to him (the role subsequently went to Imran Khan). Two, Shahid had been preparing for months – even though he’s a workout junkie, he needed to look like an average guy for the film and therefore was told to stay away from the gym. Not only did he miss his workouts for months, but he lost around eight kilos for the film! Unfortunately, things didn’t work out this time.