Everyone's aware that Rajkumar Santoshi was supposed to direct ‘London Dreams’ initially, before Vipul Shah took over. But not many are aware that Vipul re-wrote and changed the entire script that Santoshi was to make. "I've just retained one sequence from that script," the talented film-maker tells me.

The film-maker has a fantastic track record, with ‘Aankhen’, ‘Waqt’, ‘Namastey London’ and ‘Singh Is Kinng’ receiving a warm welcome from moviegoers. The viewers are bound to compare ‘London Dreams’ with Vipul's earlier works. "I am not worried. I feel I've only evolved as a storyteller with ‘London Dreams’. I strongly feel that this is my best film to date," he says with utmost modesty.

There's talk that the film bears a striking resemblance to ‘Rock On!!’, ‘Yaarana’ [Amitabh, Amjad Khan], ‘Saajan’ and even ‘Abhimaan’. "Well, they were great films, but ‘London Dreams’ is not remotely similar to any film. The sole similarity with ‘Rock On!!’ is that the protagonists have a music band. In fact, when I signed Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy for ‘London Dreams’, the sole request was, don't give me any tune that's similar to ‘Rock On!!’," Vipul clarifies.

Another rumour doing the rounds is that there's friction in Vipul and Akshay Kumar's friendship. "You may find this hard to believe, but Akshay was the first person I spoke to about the casting [Salman and Ajay]. His instant reaction was, it's an ideal cast. If at all there was any friction, we would've been unable to complete ‘Action Replay’ in a record time. Also, we wouldn't be contemplating starting ‘Singh Is Kinng 2’, if we weren't on good terms," Vipul states.

... contd.