Tusshar Kapoor reveals that before Fox Star Studios came on board for Laxmii, a lucrative deal with a corporate giant fell through; he says, “Yet, Akshay Kumar was still EXCITED about the film”

By Fenil Seta -

February 19, 2022 - 11:30 AM IST

Tusshar Kapoor’s recently released book 'Bachelor Dad: My Journey To Fatherhood And More' is about his experience of becoming a single father and how his life changed after the birth of his son, Lakshhya. The book majorly revolved around his personal life but in between, he also touched upon the developments happening in his professional sphere. One such development he opened up in the book is turning producer with the horror-comedy, Laxmii (2020).

Tusshar Kapoor reveals that before Fox Star Studios came on board for Laxmii, a lucrative deal with a corporate giant fell through; he says, “Yet, Akshay Kumar was still EXCITED about the film”

The film was released on Diwali 2020 but he revealed in the book that he secured the rights way back in 2013. Laxmii is a remake of super-hit Tamil horror-comedy, Muni 2: Kanchana (2011), and Tusshar decided to buy its remake rights as he was confident that it’ll work with the Hindi speaking audiences. The film starred Akshay Kumar and Kiara Advani in the leading role along with Sharad Kelkar, Rajesh Sharma, Ayesha Raza Mishra, Manu Rishi, and Ashwini Kalsekar. It was backed by Fox Star Studios. Interestingly, Tusshar Kapoor revealed in the book that before Fox Star Studios came on board, he was in talks with another corporate giant for a tie-up for Laxmii.

Tusshar doesn’t name this company but revealed that in early 2019, he was toying with the idea of signing a deal with them as it would "promise more financial security in the release of the film and with a greater share of the pie for the future." Tusshar admitted that he was quite overwhelmed and stressed as it was his first production and was looking forward to seeing how it would all pan out. He was handling this commitment while simultaneously also taking care of his son, Lakshhya.

Unfortunately, in March the same year, Tusshar mentioned that this lucrative deal with the corporate giant failed to materialize. On the positive side, superstar Akshay Kumar was already on board and Tusshar mentioned that he stood like a rock with him. To quote the actor, "Despite this crisis and the confusion about how we’d landed ourselves in a mess after everything was going in the right direction, the superstar (Akshay Kumar) was still excited about our film and spoke about his plans for the music, locations and everything else."

Way back in 2014, Tusshar Kapoor and his team had faced a setback as well when another superstar, who was their first choice, walked out after he was uncomfortable with certain aspects of the script. Tusshar also briefly touched upon the other incident when, in 2019, director Raghava Lawrence threatened to walk out of the film after he felt that he was not kept involved with the happenings on the film.

The major controversy faced by the makers was with regards to the title of the film. Certain sections alleged that the name hurt their religious sentiments. As a result, the name of the film was changed from Laxmmi Bomb to Laxmii. Tusshar, however, doesn’t touch upon this row.

ALSO READ: REVEALED: Tusshar Kapoor’s son Laksshya got scared on seeing Akshay Kumar’s transgender avatar on the sets of Laxmii