Martin Scorsese Wanted To Cast Shah Rukh Khan & Leonardo DiCaprio In 'Xtreme City' But The Film Fell Apart

It might seem possible to fans to see Leonardo DiCaprio and Shah Rukh Khan together in real life, but it is almost impossible to even imagine seeing them together in a film. The two big superstars of Hollywood and Bollywood were reportedly almost close to doing a film together but it got shelved. The legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese wanted to bring them both together for his movie titled Xtreme City.

Martin Scorsese wanted to cast Shah Rukh Khan and Leonardo DiCaprio in 'Xtreme City'

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The talks were on. The trio even met at the Berlin Film Festival in 2011 and sat down together to discuss the gangster film. To be directed by Paul Schrader, Xtreme City would have seen Leonardo in the role of a cop and SRK in the role of a gangster. But what went wrong?

Shah Rukh's close friend Mushtaq Sheikh opened up about the film to PTI.

"It¡¯s a different kind of film, one where both Indian and American protagonists are balanced human beings and the story treats them in their full complexity without either culture being diminished or taken for granted. It¡¯s a cross-cultural thriller designed for both Bollywood and Hollywood. And if we get it right, (then) this will be an attempt at true global entertainment," he said.

Paul Schrader who is known for films like Taxi Driver and Raging Bull said that SRK didn't want to do the movie.

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He told Open The Magazine, "Just got the feeling that he was never going to be comfortable doing an international film that he didn't control. You know that everything SRK does, he has total control over? So if he did something like this at an international level, he wouldn¡¯t have that control. I think in the end he wasn¡¯t that comfortable not being a hundred percent in control."

Why has Shah Rukh Khan never been a part of a Hollywood project?

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The superstar enjoys a massive fan following that we all witnessed on his birthday recently. Thousands of fans from across the world flew down to India to meet him. Apparently, he has been offered many projects, but he never really found them interesting.

About doing Hollywood movies, at the Berlin Film Festival in 2008, he said, "My English is not good, if they give me a role of a dumb person who doesn¡¯t speak, maybe then there¡¯s a possibility. I am not trying to be modest, I am 42 years old. I am a little brown. I don¡¯t have any USP as an actor, I don¡¯t have any specialty. I don¡¯t know Kung Fu, I don¡¯t dance salsa, and I am not tall enough¡­I have seen the recent European films, there is no place for me there, no space for me. I don¡¯t think am talented enough. Instead, I would like to continue working in India and take Indian cinema to the world."

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