Aankhan 2 producer responds to threats of legal notice from Ileana

Producer Gaurang Doshi responds to threats of a legal notice from Ileana D'Cruz who says she isn't the heroine of Aankhen 2.

The sequel to the 2002 of the heist thriller Aankhen was launched on Wednesday.

Amitabh Bachchan, Arshad Warsi and Bollywood's latest South import, Regina Cassandra, who makes her Bollywood debut with the Anees Bazmee-directorial, interacted with the audience.

The other leading men, Arjun Rampal, who is in Siachen filming another project, and Anil Kapoor, who was promoting his TV show, 24, however couldn't make it. Also missing was the film's other heroine, Ileana D'Cruz, who was introduced with a video screened at the venue.

Two days later, events took an unexpected turn when Ileana took to Twitter to clarify that she had not signed Aankhen 2. The actress's manager confirmed to Mirror that she isn't doing the film.

When contacted producer Gaurang Doshi fumed, "Aankhen 2 doesn't need Ileana, we already have our four aces- Amitji, Arjun, Arshad and Anil. If we wanted to use an actor's name to promote our film, we would have said that Aankhen 2 stars Deepika Padukone or Katrina Kaif! Ileana is not going to get us additional distributors, exhibitors or viewers."

He went on to add that along with the film's writer, Neeraj Pathak, and Bazmee, he had met Ileana and her manager Nimisha at a suburban five-star for the first script reading in the first week of July. "Ileana had loved the film and agreed to do it. However, she mentioned that her agency takes a week to process the paperwork so we agreed to wait," Doshi reveals.

He added that a week later, the entire team met again to listen to the two songs that had been finalised. "Ileana said she'd really enjoyed the music and was ready for the muhurat shot. We informed her about the launch and she agreed to be a part of it," he informed.

He admitted to being surprised to see Ileana's manager tell the media that the actress was not in the film and was going to sue the makers since she hadn't got in touch with them at all. "We have been trying to speak to her to find out what went wrong, she doesn't seem to want to speak to us. Someone has definitely misguided her," he groused.

Next up: The makers are going to launch another blind character, Rahul, with a new promo soon. "But looks like we'll have to get a better actress on board too," Doshi sighed.

Casting was an uphill task following negotiations with several actors, including Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Katrina Kaif, Parineeti Chopra, Suniel Shetty, falling through in the six months preceding the final unveiling of the line-up.