Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Heeramandi has received a lot of attention, yet he nearly lost the project to David Dhawan. Here is the truth!
Sanjay Leela Bhansali has long established and maintained his specialty in the Hindi film industry. The Bajirao director is well-known for his epic storytelling approach, which includes elaborate costumes, music, and settings. The director has taken small advances over the years, but with his latest OTT debut, Heeramandi, he has gone out of his way to infuse his magnificent Bhansali enchantment into an eight-part drama. And, while Sanjay Leela Bhansali is known for including humor in his films, they are not slapstick comedies like David Dhawan. Both directors are masters of their genres, and no one has ever considered a crossover, but it is almost a reality. When SLB recently disclosed that he almost lost against David Dhawan in Heermandi: The Diamond Bazaar, fans were taken aback. This is how he had to persuade his writer to change his mind and give the idea to Dhawan again.
SLB recently talked about how he kept putting off the premiere of Heeramandi and how Aditya Pancholi brought Moin Beg to his house, telling him that only he could make the particular piece that he had written. There’s nothing like that, I said.
Bhansali pondered that he had recently completed filming Devdas. He decided to build Black instead of starting work on Heeramandi. It also said unequivocally that the author of Heeramandi Moin will never stop following up. He stated, “Moin would phone me whenever I announced a new movie.”Why aren’t you making Heeramandi? A new movie has begun for you. Ram-Leela has commenced! You’ve got to go, Bajirao Mastani! And what excitement now that Padmaavat has started! Then all he did was threaten to give the script to David Dhawan and take it away.
Bhansali chose to make Heeramandi after Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos approved the project. This short five-minute meeting took place in Los Angeles before Gangubai Kathiawadi was published.
It would be released every two to three years, according to Sanjay Leela Bhansali. I always told myself, though, that this was a huge deal. 3–4 or even 5 hours are needed. Fortunately, I realized maybe this is the appropriate spot to develop Heeramandi when this OTT format started to open up and gain popularity.
May 1 marked the Netflix debut of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Heeramandi film. Aditi Rao Hydari, Richa Chadha, Sanjeeda Sheikh, Sonakshi Sinha, Manisha Koirala, and Sharmin Segal play the main parts in the series. Playing important parts are Farheen Khan, Adhyayan Suman, Shekhar Suman, and Taha Shah Badussha.
Vicky Kaushal, Ranbir Kapoor, and Alia Bhatt feature in his upcoming film, Love & War. In a recent interview, SLB provided an update on the movie’s soundtrack, saying that he had composed a song for it. The film is scheduled for release on Christmas 2025, having been formally announced in January 2024.
