Race 2: Bipasha kicked out for Kareena Kapoor

Though for a while it seemed Abbas-Mustan would not be doing the sequel to Race, it seems the producers Tips and the Tauranis have been convinced by the film’s leading man Saif Ali Khan to rope in Abbas-Mustan again.

Explains Saif, “They understand the pulse of plot. Race was a fast-paced action-adventure caper. Not too many filmmakers in Bollywood would’ve done such a wonderful job of it.”

Apparently the producers and the usually-affable directorial duo had certain issues to be resolved. And if Saif had not intervened the film would’ve gone from Abbas-Mustan’s hands.

But Saif is keen to revive the Race magic with Abbas-Mustan, not only because the first part of the film was a blockbuster, but also because lady-love Kareena Kapoor co-stars with him.

Says Saif, “Yes Kareena will be part of Race. We’re yet to flesh out the details. But Race 2 has to be bigger and larger than Race. Otherwise no point in making it.”

Apparently Race 2 will be more gadget and gizmo-friendly, as upwardly-scaled as Dhoom 2 was as compared with Dhoom.

Bipasha’s character has been written out of the script to make way for Kareena.

John, Bipasha and Katrina’s exit from Karan Johar ad

It was one casting coup waiting to happen but that hasn’t been the case to be. For the ‘Vote Aapke Haath Mein Hai’ campaign produced by Karan Johar for Dharma Productions, John Abraham, Bipasha Basu and Katrina Kaif were the chosen ones (amongst a dozen odd other youth icons) to participate in a specially created video.

However, at the last moment, the trio couldn’t be a part of the video for different reasons and director Tarun Mansukhani had to contend with other actors.

“That’s true. Earlier on John Abraham and Bipasha Basu were all set to be a part of this video that has been created to spread awareness around voting for our Government this election season.

Even Katrina Kaif was finalised but in the final scheme of things, we had to shoot the video without the three of them. Such a pity”, exclaims Tarun Mansukhani who has made a drastic shift from a colourful ‘Dostana’ to his recent campaign that has been shot in all Black & White.

The video now stars Abhishek Bachchan, Ranbir Kapoor, Shahid Kapoor, Imran Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Deepika Padukone, Asin, Ritiesh Deshmukh, Farhan Akhtar, Sonam Kapoor and Karan Johar himself.

So what really went wrong? What was the real reason behind John, Bipasha and Katrina opting out of ‘Vote Aapke Haath Mein Hai’ which is written by Niranjan Iyengar, the man who has written dialogues Karan Johar films like ‘Kal Ho Naa Ho’ and ‘Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna’?

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