When Anees Bazmee had wrapped up Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 (2022), he had no intention to build the franchise further. By his admission, the director likes to move on to a new story after wrapping up work on one. But the horror comedy’s runaway success made him rethink his plans. “I had cracked five-six stories, but I wasn’t convinced about any of them. The day we cracked this idea, I felt excited about giving my one year to the film,” he begins.

What was this big idea? To have two Manjulikas. From there was born Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3, fronted by Kartik Aaryan. Bazmee naturally thought of the OG Manjulika aka Vidya Balan to play one of the leads. The next choice became Madhuri Dixit-Nene. “The best thing about this film is that we have two fantastic actors, Vidyaji and Madhuriji, in the same frame. It wasn’t difficult to convince them because their characters are fleshed out.