Second jolt for Dharma with Kalank after Shuddhi

It’s not been a good year for Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions at least in terms of prospective projects. First it was his troubled project Shuddhi, which ran into a lot of trouble over various issues including an undecided star cast and problems with filming. The last we heard about the project was that it was most-likely going to be shelved altogether.

A source informs, “Karan Malhotra has kept the script aside and it is unlikely that he will make the film anytime soon. As of today, the film is not even discussed in the meetings at the Dharma office. In fact, Malhotra is developing another script for the same banner”.

It seems however, that this wasn’t the end of troubles for KJo as yet another of his projects, Kalank, which was supposed to star Arjun Kapoor and Alia Bhatt, has also run aground and will most likely not take flight.

The supposed cross-border romance was apparently a dream project of Karan Johar and was going to be directed by Abhishek Verma, who had also made Two States, starring the same lead pair. In fact, the project has apparently run into the same problem as Shuddhi, with the director Abhisek unwilling to take up the project.

The director has already started work on another project of his, Shidda, which will see Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt and Arjun Kapoor sharing screen space. A source reveals, “Kalank was written for Shah Rukh Khan and he was the first and only choice for the film. But SRK later said no so the makers had approached Salman Khan last year. He didn’t agree either.”

We tried contacting Abhishek Verma, but he was unavailable for a comment.