After 13 years, Heera Mandi – Sanjay Leela Bhansali‘s ambitious project is all set to be released. According to a report by Peepingmoon, Bhansali is all set to turn the period drama into a web-film. It is also reported that the director has joined hands with Netflix for this project. While there is complete silence from the team about the film’s development, a source confirmed that the film will be revived and go on floors in the first quarter of 2021.
The source states, “Bhansali and his production company’s CEO Prerna Singh have been in talks with Netflix for quite some time now and they recently agreed to work together on Heera Mandi which has been a passion project for the filmmaker. The film has been envisioned as a big-scale custom drama and will have all the elements of a Sanjay Leela Bhansali epic even though he’s not directing it himself.”
Meanwhile, Bhansali has given Heera Mandi’s directorial role to Vibhu Puri who has written dialogues for Guzaarish (2010) starring Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. Vibhu made his directorial debut with Ayushmann Khurrana‘s Hawaizaada (2015). The pre-production work is expected to start early next year. While Heera Mandi originally starred Rani Mukerji, the new cast hasn’t been decided yet.
The source also revealed that Heera Mandi and Alia Bhatt’s Gangubai Kathiawadi are two different projects. They say, “Although both films are the stories of prostitutes in the prostitution hub, they are two different scripts. While the Alia Bhatt film is the story of the Madam of Kamathipura, Gangubai Kothewali, Heera Mandi deals with the hidden culture in the renowned red light area in the Walled City of Lahore and shows the haunting pictures of women who inhabit the place and for whom sex is a job.”
In 2007, Mahesh Bhatt worked on a similar project based on Fauzia Saeed’s book Taboo but it was shelved later on.