Aditya Dhar’s passion project, The Immortal Ashwatthama, seems to be in trouble again. Things have rapidly changed since we reported about the film being revived with Ranveer Singh supposedly headlining it. Peepingmoon.com has exclusively learned that the sci-fi superhero film has yet again been put on the backburner due to financial constraints. It’s the second time this project has been called off since its announcement in 2021. The film was initially supposed to star Vicky Kaushal, with Ronnie Screwvala backing it, before they both backed out of it last year.
Industry sources have informed us that The Immortal Ashwatthama has now been shelved for the time being. "Jio Studios didn’t approve the budget Aditya Dhar was asking for. The director has envisioned making this film on a massive scale, and it required a humongous budget, which the company felt was not commercially viable at this point in time when the market is so unpredictable. Such a huge-budget project can shut down a studio if things go wrong. Aditya has realized the risk involved with this project and has halted its pre-production work. The crew involved with this film has also been relieved now," a source close to the development told us.
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The Immortal Ashwatthama was apparently offered to many top actors in the past year. KGF fame Kannada superstar Yash, Jr. NTR, and Allu Arjun were also approached before taking it to Ranveer Singh. The latter had given his verbal nod and was supposed to sign it in the coming months, but all that abruptly came to an end when Jio Studios refused to accept the budget Dhar requested. "It’s Aditya Dhar’s dream project, so he will definitely make this film, but not right away. As of now, he has ceased all work on this movie and is now exploring other projects. The cost of this science fiction endeavour was too high to take a chance on in this circumstance when most of the big films are failing at the box office," the source signed off.
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