In 2019, Karan Johar had announced Dostana 2 with Kartik Aaryan, Janhvi Kapoor and Lakshya with great fanfare. Now the buzz is that Kjo as he is fondly called has reportedly shelved the film. The team started shooting the film, but was later put on hold due to the lockdown. And earlier this year, Karan and Kartik had a massive fallout, which led to the actor's exit from the film. Karan and his production banner, Dharma Productions, later posted that the new cast of the film will be announced soon. It was reported that Akshay Kumar might replace Kartik, but now, reportedly, the movie has been shelved.
Bollywood Hungama quoted a source saying, "There was a strong buzz all across that Dostana would be completely reshot with slight tweaking in the script. There was also a talk about Karan Johar approaching his close friend, Akshay Kumar to step into Kartik's shoes. However now, there is a very strong buzz in the industry that Dostana 2 has been put on the backburner completely. "It added, "He tried to revamp the film, but when things were taking longer than expected, he decided to put Dostana 2 on hold completely. Janhvi is now doing a film with Sharan Sharma, whereas Lakshya is doing a film with Shashank Khaitan. Akshay on the other hand teams up with Raj Mehta. And with this, Karan has put Dostana 2 silently under the shelf, hoping that it sees the light of day sometime in future." Talking about Kartik, the source told the portal, "Well, Kartik had moved on long back and is charged up with back-to-back films like Shehzada, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2, Freddy, and Captain India among others."Dostana 2 is a sequel to Priyanka Chopra, Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham starrer Dostana (2008), which was directed by Tarun Mansukhani.