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.
