Is John Abraham out of Romeo Akbar Walter?

Early last year, Sushant Singh Rajput was supposed to play the lead role in Robbie Grewal’s Romeo Akbar Walter (RAW). However, he opted out of the project and there were several names doing the rounds. In March 2018, the team officially announced that John Abraham has replaced Sushant as the main lead in the espionage spy thriller.

Now, we hear that he won’t be doing the film either. Our source informs, “John allegedly felt RAW’s storyline is similar to that of Alia Bhatt’s Raazi. When he watched the trailer of Meghna Gulzar’s film, which released a few days ago, he was convinced about it. It’s just that RAW is from a man’s perspective.” In Raazi, Alia plays an Indian girl who marries a Pakistani army officer in order to spy on them and provide the Indian Intelligence team with invaluable information during the Indo-Pak war in 1971. 

Our source says, “John’s movie is also about an Indian spy who joins the Pakistani armed forces to relay information to the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW). The team wanted to alter the script a bit, but the actor wasn’t convinced as the main storyline would still be the same. Hence, he politely asked the makers to move on.”

However, another source from the production team has a different story to tell. Our birdie confirms that RAW has been indefinitely pushed ahead, but reveals it’s for a different reason altogether. 

“The makers drew up a rough budget for the actioner and the landing cost, without publicity and promotion, which came up to Rs 40-45 crore. That is a big figure to recover with John in the lead. Moreover, he had also signed the deal for Rs 11 crore as his remuneration. So, the makers have scrapped the idea for now. If they plan to make RAW sometime in the future, they want to do it with a bigger star who can ensure a good return on their investment.” 

We texted John, but the actor hadn’t reverted at the time of going to press.