Agastya Nanda Replaces Varun Dhawan  In War  Biopic

To those  who  had read  the announcement last year that  Varun Dhawan  would play  war  veteran Arun Khetarpal  in Sriram  Raghavan’s Ikkis, it came  as  a shock to see Varun missing from the  picture  re-announcing Ikkis on  Dharmendra’s birthday on December 8.

Setting aside all  speculation  I can now inform  readers that  Varun is  no longer doing Ikkis, and has been replaced by Amitabh  & Jaya Bachchan’s grandson Agastya  Nanda  who will make his debut in Zoya Akhtar’s Archies on Netflix early next year.Ikkis will be Agastya’s sophomore project.

Varun’s  omission from the Ikkis cast  is  shocking considering his  closeness to producer Dinesh Vijan(with whom he  has just done Bhediya) and director Sriram Raghavan(helmer  of Varun’s best film so far  Badlapur).

Sources say  the parting was amicable.

“Varun is not ready to  do a bio-pic  at this  point  of time especially a real-life war hero,” a close friend of Varun  informs.

This is  ironical considering a newcomer like Agastya Nanda has taken over the  role.