Meena Iyer (BOMBAY TIMES; April 12, 2014)

Casting for a film is proving to be sticky business. The recent hijinks that went into the casting of Bajirao Mastani is a strong case in point. With the way the heroes’ and heroines’ reported exits and entries in this historical were discussed, one can clearly see that casting is becoming a ‘fragile’ issue in films.

 Likewise, when Rahul Dholakia’s Raees was first announced, the film was to have Shah Rukh Khan as a don and Farhan Akhtar as a cop. However, as time progressed, Farhan grew keen to do Dev Benegal’s Bombay Samurai. So, the makers of Raees spoke to Nawazuddin Siddiqui to fill in Farhan’s shoes. Nawaz was even asked to put on 20 kilos for the role; a challenge he happily accepted. But now there seems to be yet another challenge for the makers. Producers Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan have had a fallout with Dev over Bombay Samurai. So, the film that was to bring Kareena Kapoor Khan and Farhan together, has been put on the backburner. Farhan’s dates have, therefore, opened up.

 A source says, “After Happy New Year wraps up, Shah Rukh will do a film for Aditya Chopra. Immediately afterwards, he will start Raees. Likewise, after wrapping up his sister Zoya Akhtar’s Dil Dhadakne Do, Farhan has a slot where he can fit in his dates with SRK. And if he can match dates with SRK’s, he is ready to consider coming back into Raees, in the role that was originally his. Then, there is a likelihood that Nawaz may opt out and allow Farhan to slip back into the cop’s uniform.”

 While the trade is of the view that seeing SRK match histrionics with his Don director will be very interesting, it’s too early to predict anything. With no final word out yet, guess we will have to wait and see how this plays out.