"Happy Bhag Jayegi" is an audience backed film: director

Director Mudassar Aziz says the response to his 2016 sleeper hit "Happy Bhag jayegi" pushed him to come up with a sequel.

The second installment titled, "Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi", has a bigger star cast with Sonakshi Sinha and Jassi Gill joining Diana Penty and Jimmy Sheirgill.

"There are two Happy in this film. We have not replaced one Happy by another Happy. We had a story in which there are two heroines, one was Diana and for the other one we zeroed on Sonakshi.

"It is an audience-backed film. We want people to back it. We are hoping people will love this film," he told PTI.

 

Aziz is also open for a possible trilogy of the story provided the sequel works.

"If the audience after watching the second part feel that there is something left to be shown, then the third part will be made."

Talking about teaming up with Sonakshi for the first time, Aziz said the actor is at an interesting place in her career.

"She has got a reach but she is in an interesting stage in her career, where she is figuring out. She can do 'Dabangg', 'Rowdy Rathore' kind of films. She is intelligent and brave. She is making all the right choices."

Touted as a complete entertainer, the sequel is based on mistaken identity and lands the characters in the story in China.

"If a sequel is is made with a mindset that the first part did well commercially then it shouldn't be made. The kind of love the first part got was unprecedented, we were a small film coming sandwiched in the middle of a lot of big films. The priority was to retain the essence, honesty and simplicity of the 2016 film," Aziz added.

The Aanand L Rai-backed film is set to arrive in theatres this Friday and the director already has two scripts that are locked.

"There is a satirical social comedy and then there is a cute run-away comedy. I want to make films that families can watch," he said.