It was with much fanfare that Mogul was announced by T-series as the biopic of the late Gulshan Kumar. Akshay Kumar was finalised by the producers to play the lead role in the movie, which was to be made on the lines of the TV series Empire. Earlier it was mentioned that Divya Khosla Kumar was to direct the movie, but then Subhash Kapoor stepped into the director's role. It would have been his second collaboration with Akshay Kumar after last year's Jolly LLB 2.

Even Akshay was quite excited about the movie as he had then issued a statement, where he said,  “I had the good fortune of knowing Gulshanji well. My association with him started right from my first film Saugandh. We both shared many things in common and come from a similar background. And I am very excited to play him onscreen.”

However for the past few months, the project has been going through some rough stages. There were speculations that Akshay Kumar is not very happy with the screenplay, especially the way it depicts certain controversial portions of Gulshan Kumar's life.

Now as per a report in a leading daily, Akshay Kumar is rumoured to have backed out of the movie and has even returned the signing amount. A source close to the project has told the daily, "We don’t know whether it’s a date issue or whether Akshay had issues about certain controversial aspects of Gulshan’s life. But he has decided to not do the film. He has even returned the signing amount.”

The same report also mentions that the makers are looking at Salman Khan to take on the role next. Salman is currently signed on to play the lead role in Bharat, that is co-produced by Bhushan Kumar under T-Series. If Salman Khan gives his nod, this would be his first biopic. So watch this space for more updates on this.

Meanwhile Akshay Kumar still has some really interesting projects in hand like the period sports drama Gold, the historic Kesari, teh comedy entertainer Housefull 4 and the sci-fi action thriller 2.0.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 04, 2018 08:35 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).