July 16, 2010 (Sampurn Wire): No Kareena Kapoor and Bipasha Basu for Saif Ali Khan and John Abraham respectively in Race2 because it is felt that real-life pairs don’t work.

This is what has been decided by the producer and co-directors of Race 2.

“Kareena is to be paired with John because they’ve never been teamed together before. This depends on the two resolving their personal differences. But Bipasha is a no-no with John and with Saif because that pairing was done in Race. The idea is to bring in fresh pairs. So while Kareena would be with John, Asin might be teamed with Saif in Race 2,” says a source very close to the project.

There is no information on who would be paired with Anil Kapoor.

Race 2 has got its leading men Anil Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan and John Abraham in place. But the three top leading ladies are being kept under wraps.

Abbas-Mustan is not talking about the casting of the girls because his producer Ramesh Taurani is now in Colombo for his daughter’s wedding.

No one from the film industry is expected to attend the wedding on 18 July. Taurani it seems has flown in only close friends and family.

In the meanwhile, the final call on the female casting of Race 2 is frozen.

Says director Abbas, “We’ll take a final decision once Rameshji returns from Colombo. We’ve got two back-to-back action films Italian Job and Race 2 to shoot for two different production houses (Studio 18 and Tips, respectively). It’s a big responsibility because both are big-budgeted multi-starrers to be shot in eye-catching locations and with huge action scenes. Luckily for us, Italian Job is heist film and Race 2 is a caper. So there’s no overlapping”.

–Subhash K. Jha/ Sampurn Wire