Rajkumar Hirani: I will make just one more 'Munna Bhai' film

As Mirror had earlier reported (January 14), two years after '3 Idiots', Rajkumar Hirani went on the floors with the Sanjay Dutt biopic featuring Ranbir Kapoor in the lead. He wraps up the film by June and is targeting a Christmas release. After that, he is hoping to get started on his third 'Munna Bhai' film, bringing back the eponymous gangster and his trusty aide, Arshad Warsi's Circuit.

Hirani admitted that since the release of 'Lage Raho Munna Bhai' in 2006, the follow-up to his directorial debut, 'Munna Bhai MBBS', which had released three years earlier, he has five half-written 'Munna Bhai' scripts lying with him. "I could've taken any of them and released another film, knowing people would watch it. But I don't want to make a 'Munna Bhai' which is not as good, if not better, than the previous two. I'm going to make just one more after which someone else can take the franchise forward and it has to be equally good," he asserts.

The filmmaker went on to make two more popular films, '3 Idiots' and 'PK', instead, and towards the end of 'PK' got an idea which excited him enough to return to the series. He was planning to return to the marquee with 'Munna Bhai 3' this year when Sanjay, while on parole, started telling him his life story. For 25 days, Raju would drop in at the actor's residence at 5 pm, after finishing with the editing of 'PK', and stay till 3 am listening to him. By the time Sanjay went back to jail, Hirani had 200 hours of recorded conversation with the actor, whose real life story was more interesting than the fictional tale they had conceived to bring him back to the screen. After getting permission from Sanjay to tell his story truthfully, without glorifying it, Raju asked his writer-partner Abhijat Joshi to fly down to Mumbai and together they started scripting the biopic.

"Now, while I am shooting this film, Abhijat is working on the script of 'Munna Bhai 3'. Hopefully, by the time I'm done with the biopic, it'll be ready and I can jump into it in the new year. It's a great idea and in the same territory as the other two, but still just a half-worked idea," he admits. In 2010, Raju had announced 'Munna Bhai Chale Amrica' but the film was stalled after Sanjay was arrested in 2013. "We started on it immediately after finishing 'Lage Raho Munna Bhai'. We even shot a trailer. It was a funny script but the second half didn't work out. I will surely make one more 'Munna Bhai'," says Raju, quick to add that this is not that script but a new journey. "It's too early to say where it is going, but I had a great time working with Sanjay and Arshad earlier and I wanted to continue with them. The topic is such that it will suit an older Sanjay and Arshad. Physically Munna and Circuit might change a bit but they will continue to be my divine fools."