Kareena Is Not Our HEROINE:UTV 2 new article pg3 - Page 2

Her pregnancy has created big problems for Heroine producers

When Bollywood's biggest star Aishwarya Rai announced her pregnancy last month, it predictably made headlines. However, the film that she had to exit in the wake of her pregnancy, the big-budget Heroine is still shrouded in controversy.

Recently, it was reported that leading actress Kareena Kapoor, who is due to get her wax statue installed at Madame Tussauds, will step into Ash's shoes. However, movie production company UTV Motion Pictures has denied these reports.

Although last week Kareena told a leading newspaper that she had signed up for the movie, UTV's official statement tells a different story.  "We would like to clarify that no casting has been finalised for Heroine at all," said the statement. The clarification followed a report by a Mumbai tabloid, which stated that Kareena had demanded Dhs8,1 million for the project, but has now settled for a smaller sum.

"We further wish to state that no financial terms have been agreed upon and definitely not even remotely close to the figures quoted in the article today," the statement said.

Heroine takes a behind-the-scenes look at the life and times of a Bollywood superstar. While Kareena was the original choice for the film, Aishwarya was finalised for it. After 10 days of the shoot, Aishwarya's father-in-law, megastar Amitabh Bachchan broke the news about her pregnancy. And thereafter the film had to be put on hold indefinitely. The entire brouhaha led to demands of 'pregnancy clauses' to be included in actresses' contracts.