Nayandeep Rakshit (DNA; October 12, 2017)

Sushant Singh Rajput was excited about playing a spy in an espionage thriller. The makers had announced SSR as the face of the film RAW — Romeo, Akbar, Walter. But he is no longer doing the film. After a break, the film is now back on track with a new actor. Says a source, “The film will now have Abhishek Bachchan playing the lead role. It’s based on true events. The director and producers feel Abhishek is perfect for the slick action-thriller.”

Abhishek came on board as he is close to the producer. The source explains, “Vanessa Walia, Bunty Walia’s wife, is one of the producers of the film. Bunty and Abhishek have known each other for years and are close family friends. So, when he liked the script, he okayed the film immediately.”

PREP IT UP
AB Junior is getting in shape for the role. “He has to maintain a particular physique to pull off the combative action scenes. Along with that, there are a lot of chase sequences — very stylised and high octane.” The film kickstarts sometime next year.

BUSY YEAR AHEAD
Abhishek has not had any releases for over 15 months now. But now, he has as many as six films in his kitty, back to back. There were reports that he walked out of J P Dutta’s Paltan, but that’s also untrue.

Reveals a source close to the actor, “He never signed the film, they don’t even have proof. He just verbally offered Abhishek the film and he asked for a script narration, which never happened because Dutta is old-fashioned and doesn’t have a proper script per se. That’s when he decided to do RAW over Paltan.”