Akshay Kumar who has been a lead of the Hera Pheri franchise is no longer a part of it. The core cast of the new Hera Pheri movie include Paresh Rawal and Suniel Shetty. But instead of Akshay, the film features John Abraham. However two characters have been incorporated as homage to Akshay’s character. Producer Firoz Nadiadwala says, “Akshay played the roguish and very popular character Raju in Hera Pheri. We have incorporated references in the dialogue to his character as gone missing. Writer-director Neeraj Vora has incorporated two characters named Raju who could have been played by Akshay. One is a character called Raju Khabri, a roguish police informer played by Abhishek Bachchan, and the other is Raju Duplicate played by John Abraham who makes a living by selling pirated copies of Bhojpuri films.”
Source: www.bollywoodhungama.com
