Veteran filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali revealed that he almost lost the script of his latest series ‘Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar’ to fellow director David Dhawan.
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One of his passion projects, ‘Heeramandi’ had been on the bucket list for Sanjay Leela Bhansali for over 20 years at this point, before it finally made it OTT platform Netflix, in the form of a series, earlier this month.
However, the veteran has now revealed that his continuous delays for the project made him almost lose the script once, to filmmaker David Dhawan, known for his penchant for comedy films.
In a new interview with an Indian media outlet, Bhansali shared that he first met the writer of ‘Heeramandi’ Moin Baig back in 2002, via actor-film producer Aditya Pancholi, who showed him the ‘special’ script and said, “Only you can make it.”
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He recalled, “Whenever I announced a new film, Moin would call me. ‘You are not making Heeramandi? Now, you’ve started another film. Now, you’ve started Ram-Leela! Now you’ve started Bajirao Mastani! And now, you’ve started Padmaavat!’”
“Then he just threatened me that he’d take the script away and give it to David Dhawan,” disclosed the ‘Gangubai Kathiwadi’ director.
Read More: Sanjay Leela Bhansali breaks silence on Sharmin Segal’s performance in ‘Heeramandi’
“The script would come out every 2-3 years. But I always said to myself that this is very big. It needs a lot of time – 3,4 or 5 hours. Luckily, when this format [of OTT] started opening up and becoming popular, my mind kept thinking maybe this is the right place to make Heeramandi,” he told the outlet, adding that decision to make the title into a series was taken after his 5-minute meeting with Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos at the ‘Gangubai’ premiere.
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Notably, the eight-episodic web series, starring Richa Chadha, Aditi Rao Hydari, Sonakshi Sinha, Sharmin Segal, Manisha Koirala and Sanjeeda Sheikh in main roles, along with Farida Jalal, Fardeen Khan, Shekhar and Adhyayan Suman, and Taha Shah, received mixed reviews from viewers and critics alike.
