MUMBAI: After raving about working with Sanjay Leela Bhansali in his upcoming ‘Ram Leela’, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Kareena has decided to opt of the movie. While rumour mills were saying that she was ousted because of her approaching marriage and subsequent clash of dates between her wedding and the film schedule, Kareena has made clear that she walked out on grounds of date and monetary issues. She says "I am extremely ambitious and very career-oriented and my personal life has never come in the way of of my career. My not doing this film has nothing to do with my wedding."

 

Explaining the reasons for walking out, Kareena says, “I had allotted 100 days for the shooting in August as per contract but Mr Bhansali wanted more days to shoot. My managers Reshma Shetty and Zahid Khan thought about it and decided it wasn’t possible as I have signed three new big films for next year.” The shooting for one of them begins in October immediately after the release of ‘Heroine’. The silver lining is that walking out of this project has also given her 32 days of promotional time for ‘Heroine’ “It’s a very special film for me. That wouldn’t have been possible if I had given those dates to ‘Ram Leela’,” she says.

 

Furthermore, apparently the makers of ‘Ram Leela’ were not even willing to compensate Kareena for her extra dates and that didn’t seem viable to Kareena as she can shoot for 3 films in 150 days instead of doing just one film. Her manager Zahid further explains, “We had fixed a lumpsum amount for a 100-day shoot and had clarified that if the director took more time than that, we would be compensated, on a per-day basis. Mr Bhansali was okay with it initially but later he asked for more days and didn’t want to pay us extra for those days.”

 

The movie has Ranveer Singh as the male lead and rumors are that Priyanka Chopra will replace Kareena, but there has been no official confirmation.