Akshay Kumar Opts Out of Ekta Kapoor's Verghese Kurien Biopic But the Reason Doesn't Make Any Sense

A few days back, producer Ekta Kapoor and director Shree Narayan Singh had joined hands to announce their new collaboration - a biopic on India's Milkman or the Father of the White Revolution, the late Dr Verghese Kurien.  An interesting project that has a great scope on screen to educate the modern viewers on Kurien's efforts to bring the Milk Revolution in our country. As Ekta Kapoor put it, "The story of Dr. Verghese Kurien is not only engaging but extremely inspiring. I am delighted to tell the story of a true visionary."

As per reports, Akshay Kumar was in talks to play the lead. It made sense since Akshay Kumar is known to take on projects that are socially relevant.  Also he has worked with Shree Narayan Singh in Toilet - Ek Prem Katha, which was a superhit.

However, a new grapevine mentions that Kumar has backed out of the project. As per a report in Bollywood Hungama, a source close to the project revealed, “The film’s producer Ekta Kapoor and director Shree Narayan Singh presumed Akshay would say yes to this project because he has always shared a cordial relation with Ekta, has worked well with Shree Narayan in Toilet: Ek Prem Katha and  likes the idea of playing noble inspiring real-life  characters.”

So what happened later? Apparently Akshay Kumar late became aware that a movie had already been made in Bollywood, inspired by Kurien's life - Shyam Benegal's Manthan. The source continued, “Because Shyam Benegal has already made a classic: Manthan on Kurien’s milk revolution. Akshay feels there is nothing more he can add to the biopic.”

While it deems to be a plausible reason and Manthan is a great movie, you have to remember that it was a part of the '80s parallel cinema movement. Most of the younger generation might not be aware of the existence of the movie in the first place. With Akshay Kumar headlining the cast, Kurien's inspiring story would have reached got more prominence among Gen X. Also, it is not a new idea to have multiple movies being made on a single personality. Isn't Akshay Kumar playing the main lead in Kesari, that is based on the Battle of Saragarhi, itself a subject of two other movies and a TV series?

Akshay Kumar had earlier played the lead in quite a few movies that were based on real life incidents, like Airlift, Rustom and the recent PadMan. Airlift and PadMan, in particular, were based on real-life heroes who were from South, but the makers of the films had to make their protagonist as a North Indian to suit Akshay's inclusion. This cannot happen if Ekta Kapoor plans to make a proper biopic on Kurien, a Malayalee. So is this the reason why Akshay has backed out? Or has he got tired of social-agenda projects and want to more commercially entertaining movies on the lines of Housefull 4?

Only Akshay can answer that!

Meanwhile, popular journalist Subhash K Jha, who broke out the story in Hungama also mentions that Ekta Kapoor and Shree Narayan are now in talks with Ajay Devgn to play the lead in the biopic.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 13, 2018 06:57 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).