Five times National Film Award winner Shyam Benegal was in for a rude shock when Vivek Oberoi acted pricey with him recently.

Sources from Benegal’s unit claim that he met Vivek for his forthcoming venture Chamki Chameli. But Vivek insisted on listening to the script before giving the go ahead, which is the norm nowadays.

But after listening to the narration, the actor hiked his acting fees from Rs 3 crore to 6 crore. "The success of Shoot Out At Lokhandwala seems to have gone to Vivek’s head. The price stunned Benegal and he left without saying a word. The director is now working on casting some other actor for the role. The film, which was to be produced by Chetan Motiwalla earlier, is now taken over by Reliance Films," says the source.

Earlier Benegal had announced Chamki Chameli with Urmila Matondkar and Jimmy Shergill. Then Sanjay Gupta’s White Feather Films took over the production and changed the cast to Sanjay Dutt and Priyanka Chopra in the lead. But due to the differences between Dutt and Gupta, the project fell through.

Sources say that when Reliance films planned to produce the film Shyam was keen to have Kareena Kapoor in the lead and had even approached her. But due to date problems, the actress backed out. Kareena was keen to work with Benegal as her sister Karisma Kapur’s film Zubeida with Benegal had won critical-acclaim in the past.

Chamki Chameli’s script is about love, jealousy and betrayal, inspired by George Bizet’s classic Spanish opera Carmen. The story revolves around the eponymous Chamki, a beautiful gypsy girl with a fiery temper and is written by Shama Zaidi.

The film will have music by A.R. Rahman and lyrics by Javed Akhtar. The shooting of the film will commence in October 2008.