Bajirao Mastani was one of the dream projects of Sanjay Leela Bhansali. He had discussed the movie with Salman Khan during the making of Khamoshi: The Musical. When Sanjay was shooting Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and the Bollywood superstar the famous director loved the chemistry of these two actors on the screen.
Their off-screen affair also helped to make the romantic shots more real in the movie and then he thought of casting Salman and Ash as Bajirao and Mastani.
However, the two superstars had a very ugly breakup and Ash simply walked out of the project for obvious reasons. That is when Salman Khan for whom the new muse was Katrina Kaif took her to SLB one day and told Sanjay this is your Mastani.
However, Sanjay did not have the confidence that Katrina will be able to say the heavy Urdu dialogues convincingly and that is why he did not take this matter further.
Later on, SLB thought of casting Kareena Kapoor Khan with Salman Khan in the lead whereas Bhumika Chawla was approached for the role of Kashibai, the first wife of Bajirao. However, during the screen test, the saree of Bhumika caught fire. Although she was not harmed the project was shelved for the time being.
Almost 12 years later, Sanjay decided to cast Ajay Devgn in the lead role because the director thought the Drishyam 3 actor would look convincing as the Maharashtrian ruler. But even then the project did not take off because reportedly Ajay asked for a big fee and SLB was in no mood in paying such a staggering amount.
Finally, the dream project became a reality with an entirely new star cast and remains one of the best works of Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh. Even then, fans wonder how different it would have been with Salman Khan and Aishwarya or Katrina doing the lead role of Bajirao and Mastani.