Universal cancels Blanchett film

Blanchett had been cast as Edna Mountbatten, wife of Lord Mountbatten

Film studio Universal has cancelled historical drama Indian Summer, which was to star Cate Blanchett.

The decision to scrap the film - due to be shot in India - was mainly down to budgetary constraints, according to trade paper Variety.

Atonement director Joe Wright was to make the movie about the last days of Britain's colonial rule of India.

Both Wright and Blanchett will remain attached to the project for the foreseeable future, Variety added.

No scenes of physical intimacy between Nehru and Lady Mountbatten are allowed, no gestures or actions or words of love or affection between the two BBC correspondent Soutik Biswas on the Indian government's objections Read Soutik's blog

Based on the non-fiction book Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire, by Alex von Tunzelmann, the film was to have told the story of Lord Mountbatten, the last viceroy of the British Indian Empire.

Lord Mountbatten was sent to oversee the handover of power to Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister.

Blanchett had been cast as Lord Mountbatten's wife, Edwina.

There had been speculation in the Indian media that the film would focus on an alleged affair between Nehru and Lady Mountbatten.

Wright told Variety there had been creative differences between the film's producers and the Indian government.

"We were in between a rock and a hard place," he said.

"The Indian government wanted us to make less of the love story while the studio wanted us to make more of the love story."