Abhishek Banerjee recently made headlines for his comments over Dharma Productions and Karan Johar. The actor has been busy promoting two of his recent releases, Stree 2 and Vedaa. During an interview, he recalled the incident about Agneepath's casting, which has gone viral all over the internet. Now, Abhishek has released an official statement on this matter to clarify all the rumours.This week I have been blessed 🙏 with two releases and one controversy. I've been reading and hearing a lot of reports about Dharma Productions supposedly firing my company, Casting Bay, during the casting process of Agneepath (2012). Unfortunately, this situation has been completely misrepresented as accusatory on our part. In a podcast/interview, I had stated the reason for our dismissal, acknowledging that we were unable to align with the vision of director Karan Malhotra for Agneepath. I also emphasized that Anmol and I were quite young at the time, around 20 to 23 years old, with little to no experience in casting for a major commercial film, which perhaps led to us misinterpreting Mr. Malhotra's requirements for the project.
I have not accused or suggested any wrongdoing on the part of Dharma Productions. In fact, I have deep respect for Dharma Productions and Karan Johar. I never mentioned Karan Johar in relation to our dismissal, yet some reports falsely claim that he was the one who fired us. The decision was actually made by Mr. Malhotra's team, and I accepted our mistakes. I shared this story to encourage young people that even if you fail or hit a roadblock, you can always bounce back, as we did. We went on to work on several projects with Dharma, starting with Ok Jaanu, Student of the Year 2, Kalank and recent releases like - Kill and Gyarah Gyarah. Additionally, Dharma even cast me as an actor in Ajeeb Daastaans. Dharma has always been very good to me and to my company, Casting Bay. It is a relationship we value and nurture.
Abhishek started his career as a casting director in 2010 before starring in movies. He did the casting for movies, including The Dirty Picture, No One Killed Jessica, Gabbar Is Back and Rock On 2. However, there was a moment in his life when he thought his career was over. In an interview with Siddharth Kannan, Abhishek revealed that he was fired as casting director by Dharma Productions from Hrithik Roshan starrer Agneepath. "We were fired from Agneepath. We were casting for Agneepath, it was then taken over by Jogi (Mallang) bhai. Why were we removed? Because Karan sir didn’t like our casting. We were casting Anurag Kashyap-type actors. He didn’t like it and said, ‘Nikal jaao humaari film se (get out of our film)’. We thought our career was barbaad, khatam (our career was over) because we were thrown out of Dharma (Productions). We thought we were done, but thankfully, we survived,” he added. In 2017, Abhishek co-founded a casting agency called Casting Bay along with his friend Anmol Ahuja. Through this, he has served as a casting director for movies such as The Sky Is Pink, Paatal Lok, Kalank, Panchayat, Bhediya and Vikram Vedha. Helmed by Amar Kaushik, the horror-comedy has become the first movie to enter ₹100 crore club in just 3 days. On Saturday (August 18), Stree 2 racked ₹44 crore, according to early estimates reported by Sacnilk. Adding the 3-day collection, the total stands at ₹135.7 crore at the Indian box office.