Varun Dhawan lets go of biopic on hockey legend Major Dhyan Chand

By: Mohnish Singh

Over the past few years, several filmmakers have expressed their desire to make a biopic on hockey legend Major Dhyan Chand, who is widely regarded as the greatest in the history of the sport.

Initially, Karan Johar had bought the rights to make the biopic on the three Olympic gold medals winner. He wanted to cast Shah Rukh Khan in the titular role. However, the project never got off the ground for a variety of reasons. Now, Ronnie Screwvala of RSVP has the rights and he is planning to mount it on a massive scale by 2022.

Filmmaker Abhishek Chaubey, who has previously helmed Sonchiriya (2019) for RSVP Movies, is set to hold the directorial reins of the biopic. Apart from directing, he will also co-write the screenplay along with Supratik Sen.

However, just when the team at RSVP Movies thought everything was in place, the project has faced a major setback. From what we hear, Ronnie Screwvala approached Varun Dhawan to topline the project, but the actor could not come onboard because of his packed date diary.

“RSVP approached Varun Dhawan for the movie. The script is terrific and he liked the whole plot. But the problem was that RSVP needed his dates almost immediately after the lockdown this year. He is already committed to several films and he could not accommodate this one, because this will need a lot of his time - for the prep and then, the shoot. So, he had to decline the offer,” a source close to the development informs an entertainment portal.

Talking about Varun Dhawan’s line-up, the actor currently has four exciting projects at various stages of development. These include Dharma Productions’ Jug Jugg Jeeyo, Maddock Films’ Bhediya, Nadiadwala Entertainment’s Sanki and Sriram Raghavan's Ekkis.

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