After the Anjaana Anjaani debacle, when director Siddharth Anand lost the direction of Sajid Nadiadwala's Two States to Vishal Bharadwaj, he went into a cocoon of sorts.
He also fell-out with Ranbir Kapoor, who starred in AA and spent time trying to figure out where exactly did he go wrong.
At that point, Shahid Kapoor played the 'friend in need'. And now, the filmmaker is prioritising his 'true friend' over every other commitment of his.
It has been learnt that inspite of whatever happened, Siddharth was signed by Fox Star Studios, India, to make not one, but two movies.
Free hand
A well-placed source at the production house reveals, "One of which is an Indian version of the studio's Hollywood film, Knight And Day that starred Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. For the second movie, he was given a free hand to come up with his own subject."
However, there seemed to be no development on either of the scripts, post this confirmation. According to our informer, "He didn't revert. He kept on dilly-dallying, saying he was still working on them."
In the interim, he was reportedly signed by Ramesh Taurani to direct a movie with Shahid for Tips. "Strangely, after this, there was a flurry of reports that the director is remaking Knight and Day with SK for Tips.
Neither did Sid deny these reports nor did he revert to Fox on the status of his scripts, " explained our source.
When questioned why Fox wasn't pulling the strings on the director, our insider said, "Fox is biding its time till the end of July, because that is when Siddharth is supposed to revert.
So if there's no development by then, a plan of action against him will be sought."
Evasive answers
When contacted for his side of the story, the director stated, "I'm not doing any remake.
I'm working on a couple of scripts individually. And as and when something concrete develops, I'll be in a better position to talk about it."
Probed about prioritising the action movie with Shahid for Tips, the director maintained, "I'm in talks with them. Shahid is a friend. I do discuss subjects with him.
As and when something is finalised, I'll talk about it." However, a well-placed contact in Tips films confirmed that Siddharth is making an action flick with Shahid for them.