The first and according to insiders the “only” choice for Karisma Kapoor’s role in David Dhawan’s remake of his own movie Coolie No 1 was Alia Bhatt.

In fact, the entire project was re-formatted to suit Varun Dhawan and Alia as the millennial’s Govinda and Karisma. But then, Alia is completely immersed in her work commitments until the end of the year. More importantly, it was felt that the Alia-Varun pair must be rendered exclusive for the ‘Dulhaniya’ series.

Says a source, “Karan Johar has produced two films Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhaniya and Badrinath  Ki Dulhaniya in Varun-Alia Dulhaniya series and the third is in pipeline. He would want to keep it exclusive to the series.”