To those who had read the announcement last year that Varun Dhawan would play war veteran Arun Khetarpal in Sriram Raghavan’s Ikkis, it came as a shock to see Varun missing from the picture re-announcing Ikkis on Dharmendra’s birthday on December 8.
Setting aside all speculation I can now inform readers that Varun is no longer doing Ikkis, and has been replaced by Amitabh & Jaya Bachchan’s grandson Agastya Nanda who will make his debut in Zoya Akhtar’s Archies on Netflix early next year.Ikkis will be Agastya’s sophomore project.
Varun’s omission from the Ikkis cast is shocking considering his closeness to producer Dinesh Vijan(with whom he has just done Bhediya) and director Sriram Raghavan(helmer of Varun’s best film so far Badlapur).
Sources say the parting was amicable.
“Varun is not ready to do a bio-pic at this point of time especially a real-life war hero,” a close friend of Varun informs.
This is ironical considering a newcomer like Agastya Nanda has taken over the role.