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The Amitabh Bachchan-Akshay Kumar war!
After the Shah Rukh – Amitabh war, there's yet another one – that of Amitabh Bachchan and Akshay Kumar – on the Bollywood battlefield. We hear that Bachchan and Kumar no longer get along with each other, and Amitabh has decided not to work with Akshay Kumar any more. Even though they have successfully worked together earlier in six movies, the Big B is not keen to work with Akshay again.
The rift between two started when Akshay Kumar and Bhushan Kumar acquired the remake rights of the Malayalam film Manichitrathazhu from producer KS Rama Rao to make Bhool Bhulaiya . Apparently, the rights were to remain with Rao, who had already discussed to remake the movie in Hindi, with debutant director Ahsan, who is a writer and an ad-filmmaker.
Speaking to Indiatimes Movies, Ahsan said, "Akshay and Bhushan have hijacked my film. I was supposed to make a Hindi version of Malyalam film Manichithrathazhu . It starred Mohan Lal and Shobhana in main lead and received the National Award for their respective performances. . It was the movie which was remade as Apthamitra in Kannada, which was late actress Saundarya's last film as an actress. This movie was made as Chandramukhi in Tamil with Rajnikant in the main lead."
Ahsan continues, "I was so confident about the film that I thought of adapting it in Hindi and spoke to its producer Apachan. He was happy when I told him that I am going to adapt this film keeping international audiences in mind. He liked the idea and sold it to my producer K S Rama Rao, in spite of Aditya Chopra also negotiating hard for the rights."
Ahsan further explains that he was keen to start the film and had also written a sound screenplay for it. Not just that. He had even finalized ace music director A R Rahman for the music. "I spoke to Mr. Amitabh Bachchan, who liked the script and agreed to do it. I wanted to cast Kajol and Ajay Devgan in the lead roles. My film was tentatively titled Dasataan . We were supposed to start this film soon after Bachchan resumed work after his illness."
Ahsan's association with Bachchan goes back to the time when he used direct him in polio ads. He continues, "When Akshay Kumar came to know about the film we were to make, he convinced Bhushan Kumar to buy the rights from my producer K S Rama Rao. They paid him a whopping 3.5 crores which is hard to resist. All this happened when Mr. Bachchan was in the hospital and both of us were unaware of the goings-on. When I got to know about the 'deal', I decided to file a case against my producer Rama Rao, who deceived not only me, but also a great actor like Amitabh Bachchan."
After this issue Bachchan decided not to work with Akshay Kumar henceforth. According to a source, Amitabh was supposed to play an important role in Vipul Shah's Namastey London but he refused to do it because he didn't want to share screen space with Akshay. Later on, the same role was shortened and offered to Rishi Kapoor. It is also believed that Vipul Shah was supposed to make a film based on a play which he canned as Bachchan didn't want to work with Akshay. Finally, Vipul decided to go ahead with Akshay and announced Singh Is Kinng .
Amitabh-Akshay rift has also cost filmmaker producer Rohan Sippy dearly, who wanted to cast Amitabh in his next film Made In China , which is being directed by Nikhil Advani. But Bachchan refused the film as Akshay is playing the main lead in it.
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