Amid the announcement of several new projects, the news of Vicky Kaushal and Sara Ali Khan starrer 'The Immortal Ashwathama' getting shelved has become the talk of the town.

Reports stated that the modern-day mythology-based film has been indefinitely put on hold due to budget issues and the team has to suffer massive losses due to lockdowns during the pandemic.

Vicky Kaushal
Sara Ali Khan, Vicky KaushalInstagram

Clash between producer and director?

A Bollywood Hungama report stated that a source revealed, "Ashwathama has been in the prep stage for over two years now. The team did multiple recces, worked on the entire pre-visualisation, did multiple meetings with the VFX team, got an international action unit on board to train Sara and Vicky for their action-packed role over the last one year. Producer Ronnie Screwvala spent over Rs 30 crore to get everything in place, and now, the entire investment has gone for a toss."

The source has also revealed that director Aditya Dhar, who earlier had directed war drama 'URI- The Surgical Strike', which also had Vicky Kaushal in the lead, and the producer seemed to have major differences on the budget as well as in the creative aspects.

Budget was going out of control

The report stated that the final budget seemed to have been going out of control and thus the makers had to pull the plug, "The film was initially planned to be made in a certain amount of budget, but as the pre-production work kicked off, the budget kept on increasing by the day.

Finally, he felt that it's better to let go off the investment of Rs 30 crores, rather than burning his pockets in the longer frame of time. He had a meeting with his investors, actors and director and finally took the tough call of shelving the film."

Meanwhile, on the work front, Vicky Kaushal will be appearing next in several upcoming projects, including 'Sardar Udham Singh' and a biopic on Sam Manekshaw. While Sara Ali Khan is all set to start shooting for 'Atrangi Re'.

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