Director Tigmanshu Dhulia’s Ghamasaan released on September 11, while his next with Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Woh Phir Kabhi Dikha Nahi, is in the last leg of making. Even as he has been busy with these two projects, a story has remained constant in his mind — the biopic of late filmmaker K Asif of Mughal-e-Azam (1960) fame.

“Ghar bhi chalana hota hai. So, when some projects come my way, I have to halt the process of writing the film,” Dhulia told mid-day.

In his 26-year career, Asif made only five films, of which two were left incomplete. But his one creation — the Prithviraj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar, and Madhubala-starrer, Mughal-e-Azam — catapulted him to a legendary status. The epic famously took 12 years to get made. “This film is taking as much time as Mughal-e-Azam took to get made,” quipped Dhulia, who has been writing it since the project’s announcement in 2024.

He added that he has finished writing 100 scenes so far. “I have finally reached the point when the shoot of Mughal-e-Azam starts.”

Given the magnificence of Asif’s historical drama, opulence comes to mind the moment one thinks of the director. But grandeur is not what Dhulia’s biopic focuses on. Instead, he wants to zoom in on the man behind the filmmaker, whose promising career was marked by movies that remained for years in production and then cut short by his untimely death at 48.

“This film is not about opulence. It talks about Asif as a person. It’s personal in nature,” he reflected.