No Lage Raho for Munnabhai

According to insiders, there will be no more films in the series; Munnabhai Chale Amrika may be scrapped, too!

When Lage Raho Munnabhai released in 2006, producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra threw in the trailer of Munnabhai Chale Amrika and raised sufficient interest in a sequel. However, if sources at Vidhu Vinod Chopra Productions are to be believed, that sequel may never even happen.

Sanjay's scene

A source at the production house spills the beans, "Rajkumar Hirani and the America-based writer, Abhijat Joshi cannot seem to take the story for the third installment forward. Apparently, in the initial drafts, the story goes that Sanjay Dutt dies due to an accident and by the end of the film Arshad Warsi too dies."

Killing off the main characters of the series was said to be a planned move as the makers were toying with the idea of making the fourth film where Sanjay and Arshad's souls meet God.

Intelligence?

Says the source, "Regardless of the intelligent scripting, Sanjay Dutt made a scene and told the director Raju and producer Vidhu that Munnabhai couldn't be killed off as he was the life and soul of the stories and without Munna, there can be no more films."

Fixed

The source continues, "Abhijat Joshi and Raju are in a fix. In fact Hirani has now moved on and doesn't want anything to do with the Munnabhai movies." The director is currently working on three different scripts; none of which are Munnabhai films. Idiot, in all probability, will be the first film the acclaimed director will make. This movie has Aamir Khan and Kajol in leading roles.

Rajkumar Hirani remained unavailable for comment but Sanjay Dutt reacted. He thundered, "Who gave you this information? None of this is true." Dutt also refused to comment on the status of MCA.