Producer Ashwin Varde has earlier bought the rights to Amish Tripathi’s Novel ‘Legend Of Sehuldev: King Who Saved India’.
After Ajay Devgn, Ashwin approached Akshay Kumar to play the Hindu king Sehuldev in the movie adaptation.
However, according to Bollywood Hungama, Akki has refused to be a part of this movie due to his tight schedule and script issues. The actor has supposedly felt that the script needed rework.
Ashwin reportedly went to Delhi in the first week of December to discuss this project with Akshay. The actor is already booked for the next two years and Ashwin is planning to start filming from next year and demanded 70 days from Akshay.
“Ashwin flew down to Delhi in the first week of December to meet Akshay Kumar and had a detailed talk about his plans to make this film on a humongous scale. However, eventually, the actor felt that the script needed a lot of rework. After having discussions with Ashwin, he decided to take a backseat from the film as he was not on the same page with the stakeholders creatively,” a source revealed.
The source further stated, “Apart from that, even dates were an issue as Akshay is blocked for the next 2 years and Ashwin and co were looking to start the film sometime next year, demanding over 70 days from Akshay. It was almost impossible for Akshay to accommodate the film in his jam-packed schedule.”
The makers approached Ajay first for the lead role. The actor, however, took a backseat for some unknown reasons.
“It’s a young character in the novel, and it was reworked keeping the age of senior actors in mind. However, now they will go back to the basics and set the original character sketch again to approach one of the gen-next superstars,” the source added.