No America trip for Munnabhai

Turns out, Munnabhai won’t go to America, afterall. As sojourns to the USA become commonplace in Bollywood, franchise makers discard the idea entirely. Read on to know more.

Turns out, Munnabhai won’t go to America, afterall. After the success of Lage Raho Munnabhai (2006), producer-director duo Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Rajkumar Hirani had decided to make Munnabhai Chale Amerika. In the third part film of the successful franchise, Munna and Circuit (played by Sanjay Dutt and Arshad Warsi) were set to travel to the USA to meet the President.

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Now, writer-director Hirani has apparently altered his script completely, and while he remained unavailable for comment, Warsi contends that the new story has nothing to do with the USA or it’s President. "There will be no USA in the next Munnabhai film. As far as I know, the film’s script is completely new. Let’s see how things go," says Arshad. "We plan to start shooting by mid-2012. At least that’s what I have been told."

Munnabhai Chala Amerika had apparently flagged off with the idea of Munna meeting the US President, but Hirani later admitted that the angle had been edited from the story after he "discovered that Shah Rukh Khan was also meeting the President in My Name Is Khan (2010). It also happened earlier in Singh is Kinng (2008)."Eventually, the makers have decided to discard the USA angle entirely. Quite interestingly, some time back, a two-minute teaser trailer had been released, in which Munna and Circuit are seen learning English for the trip.



Apparently, the script for the next film is ready, but Hirani is busy with his next, Ferrari Ki Sawaari while Chopra is caught up with his English films. That’s the reason why no official announcement has been made yet.Warsi, meanwhile, is busy with a host of films. He plays a real-life outlaw, Mahender Fauji in Zilla Ghaziabad, while Ishqiya 2 kicks off around November. He’s also playing a lawyer in Jolly LLB.