Following Raghava Lawrence’s exit from the Akshay Kumar-starrer Laxmmi Bomb, the makers of the Hindi film have decided to rope in a new director, the Mumbai Mirror tabloid reported on Monday. Co-produced by Kumar’s A Cape of Good Films, Laxmmi Bomb also stars Kiara Advani and was aiming for a June 2020 release.
Laxmmi Bomb is a remake of Lawrence’s Tamil horror comedy Kanchana (2011). The producers of the film, Shabina Khan and Tusshar Kapoor, hoped to find a new director before the second shooting schedule in September, Mumbai Mirror reported. “Akshay has taken control of the project and met Shabina and Tusshar to decide the future course of action,” an anonymous source told Mumbai Mirror. The source cited a “communication gap” for the reason behind Lawrence’s sudden exit.
Lawrence bowed out of the film on Saturday, citing creative differences with the producers. One of the reasons behind his departure was the film’s poster, which was released “without his knowledge”, the filmmaker said in a statement on Twitter. Lawrence added that he was dissatisfied with the poster design, which features Kumar applying kohl to his eyes.
“I don’t want to mention the reason because there are multiple reasons, but one of them is that the first look poster of the film was released today without my knowledge and even without discussing anything with me,” Lawrence said in his statement. “I was informed about this by a third person. It is very painful for a director to know about his movie’s first look release from others. I feel very disrespected and disappointed...This shouldn’t happen to any director.”
Lawrence, however, added that he would not hold back the film’s script. “I can hold back my script because I haven’t signed any agreement regarding this film, but I won’t do it because it is not professional,” Lawrence said. “I’m ready to give my script because I personally respect Akshay Kumar sir a lot.”
Written and directed by Lawrence, Kanchana explores the life of a ghost-fearing man (also played by Lawrence) who gets possessed by a revenge-hungry transwoman (Sarathkumar). The Tamil film is the second film in the horror franchise that began in 2007 with Muni.
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