Alia Bhatt was to star in Munjya?
Munjya director said that the film’s script was changed and he did not look at it as a female-led story.
Sharvari Wagh and Abhay Verma’s Munjya has been quite successful at the box office. The film has crossed Rs 100 crore in collections and has left everyone impressed with its performances and narrative. However, did you know that Alia Bhatt and Shraddha Kapoor were also reportedly considered for the film? Director Aditya Sarpotdar responded to this speculation in a recent chat.
In a recent chat with The Indian Express, Aditya responded to this claim and revealed that the film’s initial script was changed after he came on board. He said, “Yogesh Chandekar, the writer of the film, had seen this film as a female protagonist film where the conflict was that she was in love with her best friend who was a teenager. It was that angle that was being brought in the narrative.”
“When I came onboard and read the script, I said that I did not identify with the social referencing in the film as I don’t understand it and it wouldn’t be right for me to comment on it either. I saw the film about these two guys who are in a position in life, in the same space where they were in love with an older girl. The hero respected and looked at her in a very sensitive manner. He believed in consent, rather than this guy who was obsessed and crazy about this girl he was in love with and went to the extent of getting her killed,” he added.
He said, “I wanted these two parallels together. I thought people would understand it better if there are two guys in the same direction. Dinesh (Vijan) understood this. Yogesh also agreed with this approach. I was adamant about not casting an older man because love at first sight and the referencing with an older man gets awful and it is somehow very cliched now. We keep seeing these old men falling in love with younger girls. I wanted a 19-year-old who feels he’s fallen for an elderly girl. He is at a stage in life where he doesn’t necessarily understand what life is and that’s his journey. That’s how Abhay came on board. He fits the part. He looks that age and is believable.”
Speaking about the possibility of a crossover among Munjya, Stree and Bhediya, Aditya said, “There is a plan on how Munjya will come into this whole universe, just like how Bhediya after the first film will come into the universe. There are these larger plans in mind. But the larger point was that we connect Bhediya to Munjya and that’s why you see Varun Dhawan in a scene and not Rajkummar Rao or Shraddha Kapoor. The idea was to have a stronger connection because I am sure that the Bhediya sequel is being planned where there will be a larger connection between Bhediya and Munjya. We will then have a few more characters come into this universe where there will be these cross-connections and integrations in other films.”
