Back in January this year, Vicky Kaushal was very excited to announce his next project ‘The Immortal Ashwatthama’, with Sara Ali Khan as his leading lady, however reports have now suggested that this film has been shelved indefinitely.
According to Box Office Worldwide, Kaushal who was reuniting with director Aditya Dhar and producer Ronnie Screwvala following the success of ‘Uri: The Surgical Strike’ (2019), have now decided to drop the film due to differences of opinions. Unfortunately this has meant a huge financial loss too costing the makers Rs 30 crores, “Ashwathama has been in the prep stage for over two years now. The team did multiple recces, worked on the entire pre-visualization, did multiple meetings with the VFX team, got an international action unit on board to train Sara and Vicky for their action-packed role over the last one year. Producer Ronnie Screwvala spent over Rs. 30 crore to get everything in place, and now, the entire investment has gone for a toss,” shared a source.
The source further added, “After investing a considerable chunk, Ronnie realised that the final budget of the film was going out of control and it would be difficult to recover the money even in the non-Covid times. The film was initially planned to be made within a certain amount of budget, but as the pre-production work kicked off, the budget kept on increasing by the day. Finally, he felt that it’s better to let go of the investment of Rs. 30 crores, rather than burning his pockets in a longer frame of time. He had a meeting with his investors, actors, and director and finally took the tough call of shelving the film.”
Even though Screwvala has previously enjoyed working with Dhar, this decision hasn’t come lightly and has advise the cast to look for new projects, “He loves Aditya Dhar after working with him on Uri: The Surgical Strike but has taken a practical call over here, as reality scores over emotions for him. Aditya is yet to decide on what to do next, whereas Vicky and Sara have already started to find new projects to kick off in the time allotted for Ashwathama,” concluded the source.
