Lage Raho Munna Bhai - Production

Production

The Munna Bhai series began after Vidhu Vinod Chopra agreed to produce Rajkumar Hirani's film Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. when no one else would (Hirani had worked as an editor on Chopra's Mission Kashmir). They also collaborated on the script for the film. Rajkumar Hirani next began work on a film that was not related to the Munnabhai series but instead focused on a man who hallucinates about Gandhi. Hirani was in talks with Aamir Khan about the screenplay. However, after a period of time Hirani decided to combine this script with a pending sequel to Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. and thus Khan was dropped from the project. Khan and Hirani would instead team up a few years later for Three Idiots.

The sequel was initially known as Munnabhai Meets Mahatma Gandhi and was later retitled Munnabhai 2nd Innings before being given its current name. Film director and screenwriter Rajkumar Hirani admitted in an interview that he felt the burden of expectation while writing the screenplay for Lage Raho Munna Bhai, as he had to create "something to match" the first film. Initially there was some effort to incorporate scenes or particulars of the first film into the sequel (such as the idiosyncratic laugh of Dr. Asthana, portrayed by Boman Irani), but the risks of repetition were then consciously averted.

One of Hirani's goals in making the film was to revive an interest in Mahatma Gandhi, a figure whom he felt had been forgotten in contemporary India. To highlight this fact, Hirani recounted (during an interview) an incident with a chai-wallah boy (a boy who brings tea to the crew) during production:

The boy was curious, he was a big Munnabhai fan and kept asking the name of the film. The first working title was 'Munnabhai Meets Mahatma Gandhi,' and Shantanu (Moitra, the music director) told him. So he said, 'Munnabhai to theek hai, yeh Mahatma Gandhi kaun hai?' ('Munnabhai is fine, but who is this Mahatma Gandhi?') So this is the sad state of affairs today. I was shocked. And it's not just the chai-wallah. A few days ago on TV a lot of politicians were asked India-related questions on the news channels, and I can't believe a lot of them don't know 2 October is Gandhiji's birthday! Many didn't know his first name. They kept saying, 'what's in a name, we respect his ideals,' but come on! How can you not know his name?

The other screenwriter, Abhijat Joshi (who currently teaches in the department of English at Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio), stated that he had been conducting extensive research on Gandhi for some time, a fact which inspired producer Chopra to involve Joshi in the creation of the second Munna Bhai screenplay.

While writing the screenplay, Hirani and Joshi stayed together for more than four months. They developed scenes by going out for a walk and discussing the scene. They would not return home until they had created a scene that would make them laugh, or cry, or had some provocative thought. While there was a shortage of resources during the shooting of Munna Bhai M.B.B.S., the crew did not encounter a financial crisis during the filming of Lage Raho Munna Bhai, as the team managed to receive whatever was deemed necessary (including a Jimmy Jib, a specific kind of camera crane, just for a single crane shot). The film was shot on location in and around Mumbai, with Goa as a backdrop for the filming of the "Aane Charaane" song.

Only two characters—those of Munna Bhai (portrayed by Sanjay Dutt) and Circuit (portrayed by Arshad Warsi)—were retained from Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. Several actors, also from Munna Bhai M.B.B.S., appeared in Lage Raho Munna Bhai but as different characters. Vidya Balan was chosen to play the leading lady in the film as her voice was thought to be appropriate for that of a radio jockey.

The actors used several techniques to develop their characters. Arshad Warsi ("Circuit") encountered some initial problems reviving his character from the first film. On the first day of the shoot when Arshad, "said his first line, he didn't sound like Circuit at all. He sounded like Arshad Warsi speaking with an accent". Warsi admits that he had "forgotten" the character of Circuit and had to watch the DVD of Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. three times before being able to film the scene in the correct way. Sanjay Dutt ("Munna Bhai") also confessed that he had to watch the first film eight to nine times in order to recapture the "persona" of Munna Bhai. In addition, Dutt stated in an interview that he did not read Gandhi's autobiography My Experiments with Truth as a preparation for Lage Raho Munna Bhai. Rather, he comments, both his father, Sunil Dutt (who portrays Munna Bhai's father in the first film, Munna Bhai M.B.B.S.) and his mother (the late actress Nargis) were his role models as they "were basically Gandhians. We were brought up with those values". Dilip Prabhavalkar, who portrays Gandhi in the film, did read Gandhi's works "once again" in order to prepare for his role. Boman Irani prepared for the role of Lucky Singh by spending time with Sardarjis (male Sikhs) in auto spare parts shops to research his role. Vidya Balan ("Jahnavi") also met with a couple of radio jockeys and watched them at work.