Hrithik Roshan not in Shekhar Kapoor's next Paani

Plans of casting Hrithik Roshan in his next film Paani have now been aborted. One understands that Shekhar Kapoor is all set to start Paani, his dream project which he has been nurturing for 4 years, with newcomers in the cast.

Plans of casting Hrithik Roshan in his next film Paani have now been aborted. One understands that Shekhar Kapoor is all set to start Paani, his dream project which he has been nurturing for 4 years, with newcomers in the cast.

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According to sources, the futuristic love story set in am acutely water-challenged Mumbai would feature an Indian male debutant and a new Caucasian female face. The love saga is set in two mutually exclusive areas of an imaginary Mumbai. The Upper City and the Lower City. The Upper City housing the super-rich elite would be shown to have cornered most of the city's scarce water supply. Paani is essentially a rich-poor love story where the economically-challenged hero from the water-starved Lower City sneaks into the Upper City to romance the rich haughty neo-princess.

The film, patterned on the lines of Robert Wise's West Side Story, will finally go on the floors this summer. It is expected to have loads of music and songs.

When asked about the cast Shekhar doesn't deny his partiality towards newcomers.

Says the director, "Whether it is here in Mumbai or in the West, I usually work with new people. The cast factor has never stopped from making my films the way I want to. Let's see. I first need to be psychologically ready to shoot."

We hear the landscape for Shekhar's futuristic Mumbai may be built outside idea, probably in Spain. At the moment Shekhar is not saying anything about the location.

But in an earlier interview to this writer he had said, "I'd shoot Paani anywhere where I'd get the intellectual and geographical space to build my city of a water-challenged future. At the moment, we're exploring the modalities and the feasibility of the venue for shooting."

Shekhar is amused by news reports that Danny Boyle is producing Paani. "Where do these stories come from? Nothing has been confirmed with Danny as yet."

Shekhar's next immediate assignment is likely to be a music video for his daughter Kaveri.

"It's entirely up to her when she wants to shoot it. I am completely at her disposal," says the doting father.