India, March 15 -- Filmmaker Sajid Ali says the growing conversation around his next film, Heer Ranjha, a spiritual follow-up to Laila Majnu (2018), is reassuring for him as a storyteller. "It warms my heart that people feel it is worth their time to talk about it," Ali says about the buzz surrounding the project, as he is busy with the pre-production. He adds, "It gives us a lot of confidence and also raises the bar so that we know that we can't be underwhelming because there will be an obvious comparison to Laila Majnu." At the same time, he stresses that the film is still in a very early stage of development: "It's a little too early because we're still in the pre-production planning stage. We're casting and looking at locations. Abhi, it's quite kacha at the moment." There were reports recently that actors Sara Arjun and Rohit Saraf have been finalised as the leads in the film. However, Sajid denies these reports, saying, "I woke up to this rumour recently. People have been asking me, and I'm as clueless as anybody else." Reflecting on the journey of Laila Majnu, which was a flop initially but a superhit during its re-release in 2024, Ali says predicting audience behaviour is never easy. "When a film has been appreciated in terms of at least numbers, then you know that people have had their fun with it. They've gone out, and they've enjoyed it and probably seen it twice in the rerun."...