However due to production costs and other logistic reasons, Shankar had to drop the idea of casting Arnold. It is to be noted that the ace director had flown down Arnold Schwarzenegger to Chennai for the audio launch of his previous film I.
Now the buzz is that Rajinikanth had pitched in an actor of his choice to be cast as the villain. Sarathkumar has stirred a controversy after he said recently that, 'Rajinikanth sir called me to ask whether I would be interested in playing the antagonist in ‘2.0’. And I was happy to accept the offer.' But Shankar refused to accept Superstar's suggestion as he felt Sarathkumar lacked an international appeal and went ahead to cast Bollywood hottie, Akshay Kumar. Akshay is one of the highest paid actors of Bollywood and has a decent international appeal.