Over the last one year, Baiju Bawra has been in the news for several reasons. And why not, as director Sanjay Leela Bhansali had almost pulled off a casting coup by getting Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukone and Alia Bhatt together. However, not every tale ends up being a fairy tale. The dream cast of Bhansali has fallen through for multiple reasons.
“Ranbir Kapoor was offered the film; however, the actor did not have a pleasant experience of working with Bhansali during Saawariya. He was clear from the release of his debut film that he would never work with SLB again. That aside, he was heard telling his circle that Baiju Bawra was otherwise a boring script which had a restricted appeal for the audiences today. Hence, it was an easy decision for him to say a no to Bhansali,” a source informed.
It is Ranveer Singh, who has replaced Ranbir Kapoor now. Soon after that, there were reports about Deepika Padukone backing off the project as SLB refused to pay her on par with Ranveer. However, our source refutes the claim. “After the success of Simmba, Gully Boy, Padmaavat and having a formidable line up in place with films like 83, Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani, Shankar’s next among others; Ranveer has upped his market fees considerably. Deepika on the other hand is the highest paid actress among the female counterparts, with an average fee per film in the range of Rs. 15 crores. There is no chance of her demanding equal pay to Ranveer at this point in time and no producer would even pay that amount,” the source further added.
When prodded on the real reason for Deepika’s exit, the source shared, “Deepika has her date diaries blocked with multiple commitments. SLB is looking to take the film on floors around March next year and that coincides with Deepika’s Fighter alongside Hrithik Roshan. She has given preference to Fighter as that’s a fresh space offering her a meaty action packed role. Apart from Fighter, there is the Prabhas film too which will be shot considerably over the next year. She’s the busiest actress today and wants to do new stuff rather than repeating the same pairing with Ranveer,” the source explained.
While Alia Bhatt and Ranveer Singh are now a part of the project, we await to see which actress would step into Deepika’s shoes from the original.
