Not Kartik Aaryan, Varun Dhawan Was Reportedly The First Choice For ‘Hera Pheri 3’

‘Hera Pheri 3’ has been in the making for a long time. While Akshay had confirmed that he won’t be a part of it, Suniel Shetty and Paresh Rawal will be back in the third film. Meanwhile, speculations have been rife that Kartik Aaryan has come on-board for the film. However, did you know that Varun Dhawan was reportedly offered ‘Hera Pheri 3’ before Kartik?

As per a Bollywood Hungama report, Anand Pandit and Firoz Nadiadwala are apparently keen to have Varun in the film as Raju, and they even made an offer to David Dhawan to direct the film along with his son, Rohit Dhawan. But Varun refused to be a part of the film.

"While the offer was very tempting, Varun didn't want to jump into the franchise created by Akshay Kumar. He has tremendous respect for Akshay Kumar and didn't want to use the not-so-good equation between Akshay and Firoz, to climb the ladder of stardom. Hera Pheri 3 is a sure-shot blockbuster, but Varun stepped out of the film out of respect for Akshay. His father, David Dhawan, also felt the same," the entertainment portal quoted a source as saying.

For the unversed, Suniel and Akshay featured together with Paresh Rawal in the first ‘Hera Pheri’ film that came out in 2000. The trio reunited in 2006 for a sequel ‘Phir Hera Pheri’. Akshay's latest confirmation that he is not part of ‘Hera Pheri 3’, and Paresh's tweet confirming Kartik association with the film fuelled reports that Kartik is replacing him.

However, that’s not the case because Suniel recently refuted claims of Kartik replacing Akshay Kumar, and confirmed that Kartik has been approached for a different role.