Mangal Pandey, the biggest biographical film starring Aamir Khan and Ameesha Patel released in 2005. The film which was slated as the comeback film of Aamir after Dil Chahta Hai was directed by Ketan Mehta. The film had not signed up Amessha in the first place. Do you know that Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was slated to be in the movie and had even been gungo of it during the mahurat of the film. However, a disagreement of Aishwarya with the producer Bobby Bedi made her leave the film. A report on koimoi.com talked about it and we take reference of it.
In an interview with The Telegraph in 2003, Mangal Pandey producer Bobby Bedi had said, “We have dropped her (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan) from the film because she wanted to renegotiate the deal. She wanted to double her earlier fees after signing the agreement.”
However, when Aishwarya was asked the same, she had said in 2004 in an interview, “What’s interesting is that you remember the words, like ‘replaced’, which you etched. The fact is, the situation was very different. And time and again, ever since that situation up until today, I have answered, that the producer, in fact, rendered me an apology, for the fact that he went out of line because of speaking the way that he did in the media, because of other pressures that he went through.”
“There was a disagreement between him and my agents, and more than anything else, even up to the point of even pre-mahurat. So that was an entirely different situation. The producer apologised to me…,” the actress added.
Well, seems like Aishwarya had her own reason for opting out of Mangal Pandey!!