Who Will Be Chamki ~ Priyanka or Kareena ....

That's the question - who gets to play the role of female protagonist in Shyam Benegal's lavish project. Will it be Kareena Kapoor or Priyanka Chopra ?

Shyam Benegal has decided to revive his costliest project Chamki, a desi version of Georges Bizet's 1845 opera Carmen the question is, who will play the challenging title role of a free-spirited fiery-tempered gypsy?

According to reports, both the actresses were considered for the role. However, Kareena and Priyanka both had said no to the project in the past. Though interested, Kareena opted out because at that time she was not so keen to do art house films. Thus the role went to Priyanka, but she too couldn't do the film because of some differences with then producer Sanjay Gupta .

With the film changing hands from Sanjay Gupta to Reliance it is understood that money is no longer an issue.

If sources are to be believed Chamki has now gone back to the two original choices Kareena and Priyanka.

According to sources, Priyanka Chopra is still interested and recently said, "I had read the script ages ago. The whole project now has to be evaluated afresh. And who wouldn't want to work with Shyam Benegal ?"

Kareena continues to have reservations about non-mainstream cinema. She was recently offered another heroine-oriented film by Rituparno Ghosh. She declined.

Barring Pritish Nandy Communications Chameli she has never returned to non-mainstream cinema. But now Chamki, set in Rajasthan, is being re-designed as a big broad epic musical with super choreography and lavish songs by Javed Akhtar and A R Rahman. No expense will be spared to make Chamki a big blockbuster.

The movie is one of Shyam Benegal's most cherished projects which he has wanted to make for quite sometime, but because of financial crunch the film never saw light of the day.