The beleaguered project Padmaavat is finally out. But Sanjay Leela Bhansali is not in the mood to enjoy his success. “It’s been one hell of a journey — he has already moved on. What kept him going through these months of nightmarish ordeal was his producers; they were fully supportive and always receptive to Sanjay’s agony and pain,” says a source close to the director.

So, it is no surprise that his next film with with Viacom 18 Motion Pictures again. The source says, “It will be yet another big-budgeted musical epic. Bhansali can’t think small — even when his films have been designed as modestly budgeted as Black and Guzaarish were, they have turned out to be massive in scale. Ideally, after Padmaavat, Bhansali would like to do something smaller. But he can’t. Viacom is already looking at a budget of approximate  Rs 150 crore to Rs 175 crore for their next film with Sanjay.”