No, Akshay Kumar, Hrithik Roshan Weren't Offered Baazaar Before Saif Ali Khan

New Delhi: Nikkhil Advani, who is making Baazaar with actor Saif Ali Khan, told news agency PTI that he did not offer the film to actors Akshay Kumar or Hrithik Roshan before signing Saif. The D-Day director said that every time he is photographed with Akshay, rumours of them collaborating for a film crop up. "I have done three films with Akshay and I can meet him for dinner. Hrithik and I want to do a film together and have been talking about several films," he told PTI. The Patiala House director also said that he may discuss his upcoming projects with several people that doesn't mean he's signing them. "I discuss films with several people, at several times. It's not as if Akshay or Hrithik were supposed to do the film. It didn't even reach a stage where I told them the story. It was just a dinner conversation," he said.

Baazaar, directed by Gauravv Chawla, is about the world of stock markets and trading. Of the film's story, Nikkhil said that Baazaar's plot is not the same as Leonardo DiCaprio's critically acclaimed The Wolf of Wall Street. He added: "But I hope when you see the film you say we have matched up to that scale and achieved something brilliant. Why do we have to go to the West when everything is in the books over here."

Nikkhil said that Baazaar is about "Mumbai which controls everything, where debauchery happens." Nikkhil told PTI: "Baazaar is about 'dhando', Saif is playing a Gujrati businessman. He looks very suave on the poster but he is a Gujurati businessman in the film. It is about this businessman who crosses lines left right and centre."

Nikkhil said that Saif Ali Khan had just one condition to work in the film, which was that he doesn't want people to say, 'This does not happen.' So, Nikkhil narrated the film to a set of businessmen. "They heard it and the only comment they made was, you are talking about Rs 200 and 300 crore, but we don't talk in less than Rs 10,000 crore. Increase the numbers please," he told PTI.

Nikkhil Advani, who last directed TV show P.O.W. - Bandi Yuddh Ke, said he hired Gauravv Chawla as director because: "I felt I had out-grown the script. It needed to be made by a younger director. I am 46-year old and I don't have the connect with the brazenness, sexuality and the ruthlessness of Baazaar as a script which I had few years ago."
 

@monishaadvani you got these jokers till here. @rohanvmehra @gauravvkchawla time to hit it out of the park guys. pic.twitter.com/oPLfx9StWy

— Nikkhil Advani (@nikkhiladvani) May 14, 2017

The film also stars late actor Vinod Mehra's son Rohan and actress Radhika Apte. The film is scheduled to release this year in December.

(With PTI inputs)