Efforts are on to cast Sidharth Malhotra as the leading man - a rustic Bihari boy Madhav Jha who falls in love with Riya Somani, an upper-crust Delhi girl at St. Stephen's college - in the adaptation of Chetan Bhagat's novel Half Girlfriend.
Announced over a year ago with much fanfare by the Balaji Motion Pictures czarina, Ekta Kapoor, the project's cast line-up has been beleaguered from the word go. Moreover, the market equity of its intended director, Mohit Suri, plummeted as soon as the Emraan Hashmi-Vidya Balan love story Hamari Adhuri Kahani sank like the Titanic at the ticket windows.
Consequently, Half Girlfriend still has to take off. Sporadically, names of saleable stars like Arjun Kapoor, Deepika Padukone, Kriti Sanon and Alia Bhatt were reported to be in the film adaptation of the Bhagat paperback. None of them was finalised.
Next, it was reported that Varun Dhawan would play the Bihari boy. This was denied by Dhawan immediately on the social media.
Now, SpotboyE.com has learnt that Balaji has approached Sidharth, who has worked earlier for Balaji and Mohit Suri as the sullen hero of Ek Villain.
At the outset, the film was announced as a 2016 release. If the actor signs on the dotted line, Half Girlfriend could still maintain the release deadline. The heroine will be decided once Sidharth comes on board.
The only snag is Suri's market equity. The official adaptation of the French film, The Intouchables, which was to be produced by Karan Johar's Dharma Productions, has been placed on the back-burner.