Mumbai, Oct 30 (IANS) Suniel Shetty says he opted out of Anees Bazmi's "Singh Is King" because his role was altered. However, producer Vipul Shah, who has replaced him with Sonu Sood, puts the blame on the date clash with the actor's home production "Mission Istanbul".Suniel too goes with the dates' theory but expands on the reason for his opting out. "Earlier the role had a lot of action in it. And that excited me. Now the role is very different," Suniel told IANS.

However, Shah is not complaining.

"Suniel had a serious dates problem. He's busy producing 'Mission Istanbul' and the dates of my film were clashing with it. Being a producer myself I know how difficult it is to orchestrate a film as big as 'Mission Istanbul'. I'll work with him in my next film. But this time he's required more urgently for his own film," said Shah.

Interestingly, Akshay Kumar would be doing a lot of intricate fight sequences in "Singh Is King". It isn't clear why the role offered to Suniel changed hues but here's an intelligent guess - one action hero in one film is enough.

Odd casting shuffling seems the order of the day. Recently, Mallika Sherawat replaced Tabu in Sanjay Chhel's "Maan Gaye Mughal-e-Azam".