Daily Times

Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt’s biopic ‘Sanju’, is still doing great at the box office, even after a month of its release.

The film was praised by fans and critics, but many have criticised it for white-washing the Khalnayak actor’s image. One such individual seems to be Hirani’s contemporary Ram Gopal Verma, who has announced that he will be making a more “honest” biopic on Dutt, according to Mumbai Mirror.

Confirming the news, Verma said, “Yes, I am making the film.” As he refused to divulge any further details about it, we still have to see who he chooses to play the role of Sanjay.

While the Sarkar director quite liked Hirani’s film, he clearly felt that the part of Sanju covering Dutt’s brush with the law could have been dealt better with, a source commented.

“That Dutt was doing drugs, was traumatised by his mother’s battle with cancer [she died just three days before the release of his first film Rocky], had multiple flings, many of them one night stands, is all well documented,” said the source. “But Ramu has been meeting Sanjay’s associates and the cops involved with the investigation as part of his research.”

Well, looks like Dutt is getting a whole lot of attention these days. Let’s see when Verma’s film comes out and what he does with it. In the meantime, Sanju is still breaking the records, having surpassed Salman Khan’s Bajrangi Bhaijaan to become the fourth highest grossing Bollywood film of all time, reported Filmfare. And it did so in just 19 days after release.

The box office collection of Bajrangi Bhaijaan to this date stands at INR3.2 billion while Sanju has already managed to earn INR3.21 billion in India alone so far.

At the moment, the only other Bollywood films that have earned more than Sanju are Aamir Khan’s Dangal (INR3.8 billion), PK (INR3.4 billion) and Tiger Zinda Hai (Rs 3.39 billion).

While Dangal is still a long way ahead of Sanju, the latter is expected to cross the collections of Tiger Zinda Hai soon and earn the title of the third highest grossing B-town project of all time.

Dutt was convicted under India’s anti-terror TADA act for alleged involvement in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, after a gun was discovered from his house just days later. Recounting the incident in an earlier interview with DNA, the Agneepath actor said, “A gun destroyed my life.”

“I am not a terrorist, please read the confession. I was sentenced under the Arms Act. But I did not run away. I came back like a man and faced arrest,” he added.

Published in Daily Times, July 22^nd 2018.