Alia Bhatt was Varun Dhawan’s first choice for Coolie No 1

The first and according to insiders the “only” choice for Karisma Kapoor’s role in David Dhawan’s remake of his own Coolie No 1 was Alia Bhatt. In fact the entire project was re-formatted to suit Varun Dhawan and Alia, as the millennial Govinda and Karisma.

But then Alia is completely immersed in her work commitments till the end of the year. More importantly, it was felt that the Alia-Varun pair must be rendered exclusive for the ‘Dulhaniya’ series. Says a source, “Karan Johar has produced two films Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhaniya and Badrinath Ki Dulhaniya in Varun-Alia Dulhaniya series and the third is planned. He would want to keep it exclusive to the series.”