Bored of directors?

With his next production, Delhi Belly, Aamir Khan is almost having a stomach churning experience. After having roped in Swedish director Robert Nylund, the purrfectionist (pun not intended) actor has now developed some irrevocable creative differences with him. So out goes Mr Nylund, and ad filmmaker Abhinay Deo (younger brother of popular Mararthi actor Ajinkya Deo) makes a quick entry.

Abhinay Deo, who has shot the recent cola commercial featuring Shah Rukh, Deepika and Ranbir, was the original choice as the director. But Abhinay was working on his first feature film script then and had turned down Aamir's offer. Explains Abhinay, "Aamir had approached me almost eight months ago. But I was busy working on my own script then along with the producers - Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani. Eventually, my film got delayed. Recently, Aamir called to check what I was up to, and that's how I grabbed the film."So what really went wrong between Aamir and Robert? "Why Robert is no longer part of the film, I would not know the back-story," says Abhinay. He has just started casting for the film, which has been written by Los Angeles-based Akshat Verma. The buzz is that Akshat was keen on directing his script but Aamir was not very impressed with the idea. Our source reveals, "Such things happen in Aamir Khan Productions and Abhinay will now direct Delhi Belly."

Abhinay, who has just directed a commercial for a cell phone company featuring eight actors, is optimistic about Aamir playing a pivotal character in the dark comedy. He says, "There are 50-50 chances. But I'm yet to get a confirmation." Ask him if he has roped in Chitrangada Singh and he says: "Not yet. We have just been approaching actors."
mumbai news