Kartik Aaryan Threatened To Leave 'Shehzada'; Producer Incurs Rs 20 Crore Loss, Calls Him 'Unprofessional'

Actor Kartik Aaryan, who will next be seen in 'Shehzada,' the Hindi adaptation of Allu Arjun's 'Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo,' has threatened to 'walk out' if the dubbed Hindi version of the original film is shown in theatres, according to producer Manish Shah, who has termed the actor "extremely unprofessional."

Shah said that he owns the rights to 'Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo's Hindi dubbed version, which was due to be released in theatres but was cancelled a few days ago.

In an interview with India Today.in, Shah said, “The makers of Shehzda were not keen to release the Hindi version in cinemas. Also, Kartik Aaryan said if the movie was released in theatres, he would walk out of the film, which would have caused Shehzada producers a loss of Rs 40 crores. It was extremely unprofessional of him."

“I have known Shehzada producers for 10 years. I cannot have people who are close to me losing Rs 40 crores, so I dropped it. By doing this, I ended up losing Rs 20 crores. I spent Rs 2 crores only on dubbing. I wanted this film to be bigger than Pushpa: The Rise. If I do not release the film I lose money, so now I am releasing it on my channel. I would not have done anything for Kartik Aaryan, I only did this because of Allu Arvind. Why would I do this for a Bollywood hero? I don’t know him."

Karan Johar's Dharma Productions issued a statement in April 2021 alerting fans that despite filming certain sequences, they would be recasting their next much-anticipated film 'Dostana 2.' 

Kartik Aaryan, Janhvi Kapoor, and Lakshya Lalwani previously starred in the Collin D'Cunha-directed film. The announcement was sent via the producing company's official social media accounts. 

Several theories have circulated about Aaryan's absence, one of which being that the actor did not want to make the film because he had a falling out with Janhvi Kapoor.