Laila, O Mallika!

Feroz Khan's search for the sexy club dancer Sheela in Qurbani is over. Mallika Sherawat will now step into Zeenat Aman's shoes in the remake of the film. The actor-director will make a formal announcement in the next few days, and is planning to start shooting soon.

Big shoes to fill

Previously, Priyanka Chopra had been approached for the role but things did not work out. A source close to Khan says, "Mallika will be signing the film in a few days, but she has already given her consent.

It took Feroz a really long time to find someone to play Sheela. Zeenat had played the role with tremendous lan, so Mallika is filling some very big shoes; but Feroz is confident she'll pull it off."

No problems

Meanwhile, Fardeen Khan has been confirmed to play the role enacted by his father in the original. Saif Ali Khan had been chosen to take on Vinod Khanna's role but later walked out of the project citing date problems.

The grapevine insists that Fardeen was very upset with Saif for leaving his home production in the lurch, so he walked out of Ramesh Taurani's Race to get back at him.

But FK Junior clarifies, "That's nonsense. I was and am not upset with Saif. Whenever we meet socially, we talk just like before. There is no problem between us. I opted out of Race because the producers wanted to make Race in the same month as Sajid Nadiadwala's Heyy Babyy.

The film was supposed to go on floors in October, but they couldn't get the ball rolling till January. I had already reserved those dates for Heyy Babyy and hence I couldn't do the film."

Buzz is that Feroz Khan himself will play the police officer's role in the remake. The original had Amjad Khan playing the bubble-gum chewing cop with an eccentric sense of humour.