{"id":341914,"date":"2026-05-28T11:49:46","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T06:19:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=341914"},"modified":"2026-05-28T11:49:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T06:19:46","slug":"scoop-sanjay-dutt-asks-rajkumar-santoshi-to-direct-khalnayak-returns-veteran-filmmaker-politely-declines-the-offer-bollywood-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/05\/28\/scoop-sanjay-dutt-asks-rajkumar-santoshi-to-direct-khalnayak-returns-veteran-filmmaker-politely-declines-the-offer-bollywood-news\/","title":{"rendered":"SCOOP: Sanjay Dutt asks Rajkumar Santoshi to direct Khalnayak Returns; veteran filmmaker politely declines the offer : Bollywood News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div itemprop=\"articleBody\"> <span itemprop=\"image\" itemscope=\"\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/ImageObject\" class=\" hide\"><meta itemprop=\"url\" content=\"https:\/\/stat4.bollywoodhungama.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Sanjay-Dutt-asks-Rajkumar.jpeg\"><meta itemprop=\"width\" content=\"620\"><meta itemprop=\"height\" content=\"450\"> <\/span>  <\/p>\n<p>On April 24, Sanjay Dutt, Aksha Kamboj, Executive Chairperson of Aspect Global (Aspect Entertainment), Subhash Ghai and Jyoti Deshpande of Jio Studios announced <em>Khalnayak Returns<\/em> at an event in Mumbai. The intro teaser of Khalnayak Returns was unveiled at this event, and it received a thunderous response. Sanjay Dutt looked dashing, and using the enduring <em>Khalnayak<\/em> theme added to the joy. Since Subhash Ghai had directed the unique <em>Khalnayak<\/em> (1993), it was widely assumed that the Showman would return to helm <em>Khalnayak<\/em> <em>Returns<\/em> as well. Soon, Subhash Ghai confessed that he won\u2019t be donning the director\u2019s hat again.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazyload aligncenter wp-image-2129498 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/media5.bollywoodhungama.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Sanjay-Dutt-asks-Rajkumar.jpeg\" alt=\"SCOOP: Sanjay Dutt asks Rajkumar Santoshi to direct Khalnayak Returns; veteran filmmaker politely declines the offer\" width=\"620\" height=\"450\"><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"img-dscp\">SCOOP: Sanjay Dutt asks Rajkumar Santoshi to direct Khalnayak Returns; veteran filmmaker politely declines the offer<\/span><input type=\"hidden\" id=\"imagnary-id\" value=\"2129492\"><span id=\"imagnary-data\" class=\"loading\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>A source told <strong>Bollywood Hungama<\/strong>, \u201cSanjay Dutt was keen that Rajkumar Santoshi should direct <em>Khalnayak Returns<\/em>. He felt that Raj ji has an understanding of business cinema and would find a way to do justice. Furthermore, the 2 powerhouse, talented individuals have never worked together. Hence, Sanjay Dutt felt that it will be great to finally join hands with Rajkumar Santoshi, that too for a special project. Accordingly, he met the director and offered him the film.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The source continued, \u201cNevertheless, Rajkumar Santoshi politely and respectfully declined the offer. He\u2019s currently busy providing final touches to his film <em>Lahore 1947<\/em>, starring Sunny Deol. He\u2019s also written scripts that he desires to pitch to Sunny in addition to Aamir Khan. Hence, he told Sanjay Dutt that he doesn\u2019t have the time to direct <em>Khalnayak Returns<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The source added, \u201cNevertheless, Rajkumar Santoshi was touched by Sanjay Dutt\u2019s gesture. He wished him all the perfect and appreciated his look and swag within the intro teaser. Meanwhile, Sanju sir is now considering other filmmakers to direct <em>Khalnayak Returns<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On the <em>Khalnayak Returns<\/em> event, Sanjay Dutt revealed, \u201cI got the thought of constructing <em>Khalnayak<\/em> part 2 in jail (smiles). I used to play music contained in the prison. The inmates used to insist only on the songs of <em>Khalnayak<\/em>. I asked them, \u2018<em>Agar Khalnayak phir se banaye, toh kaun dekhna<\/em> <em>chahega<\/em>?\u2019. All 4000 prisoners said in unison that they&#8217;d like to see it. I told them, \u2018Send me a one-pager idea of the film\u2019. It took me plenty of time to read 4000 pages! One among the ideas that I got appealed to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Also Read: Sanjay Dutt reveals that the spark for Khalnayak Returns got here in jail: \u201cI asked 4000 inmates to send me one-pager ideas\u201d; reveals golden advice given to him by a hawaldar: \u201cThe day you stop hoping, you won\u2019t even realize how time will fly in jail\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<h4> More Pages: Khalnayak Returns Box Office Collection<\/h4>\n<div class=\"entry-tags\">\n<div class=\"tag-links\"><strong>Tags : <\/strong> Aksha Kamboj, Aspect Entertainment, Bollywood News, Jio Studios, Jyoti Deshpande, Khalnayak, KhalNayak Returns, News, Rajkumar Santoshi, Sanjay Dutt, Scoop, Subhash Ghai, Three Dimension Motion Pictures<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<h2 alt=\"Bollywood News - Live Updates\" title=\"Bollywood News - Live Updates\" style=\"font-size: 0.9rem;\">BOLLYWOOD NEWS &#8211; LIVE UPDATES<\/h2>\n<p>Catch us for up to date Bollywood News, Recent Bollywood Movies update, Box office collection, Recent Movies Release , Bollywood News Hindi, Entertainment News, Bollywood Live News Today &#038; Upcoming Movies 2026 and stay updated with latest hindi movies only on Bollywood Hungama.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On April 24, Sanjay Dutt, Aksha Kamboj, Executive Chairperson of Aspect Global (Aspect Entertainment), Subhash Ghai and Jyoti Deshpande of Jio Studios announced Khalnayak Returns at an event in Mumbai. The intro teaser of Khalnayak Returns was unveiled at this event, and it received a thunderous response. Sanjay Dutt looked dashing, and using the enduring [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":341915,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20659],"tags":[1962,7785,7305,567,22345,11391,30096,395,3904,52213,15689,548,11870,44273,10961,6864],"class_list":["post-341914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bollywood","tag-asks","tag-bollywood","tag-declines","tag-direct","tag-dutt","tag-filmmaker","tag-khalnayak","tag-news","tag-offer","tag-politely","tag-rajkumar","tag-returns","tag-sanjay","tag-santoshi","tag-scoop","tag-veteran"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341914"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":341917,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341914\/revisions\/341917"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}