Srijit Mukherji will chronicle the creation of Satyajit Ray's beloved fantasy Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne in a new film titled Maharaja Tomare Selam, with principal photography set to begin in January 2027, according to Variety.

The title borrows from a song inside the 1969 original, a small gesture that ties the new film directly to Ray's world. Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, based on a story by Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury, followed two inept village musicians — played by Tapen Chatterjee and Rabi Ghosh — who are banished from their homes and granted magical powers by the King of Ghosts to avert a war between two rival kingdoms. It opened on May 8, 1969, and became one of Ray's most enduring popular works.

Rather than a remake, Maharaja Tomare Selam centres on Ray himself: the pressures and choices he faced against the politically charged backdrop of Kolkata as he willed the film into existence, Variety reports. The creative struggle, not the fairy tale, is the subject.

Mukherji has assembled a cast led by Jeetu Kamal, alongside Ritwik Bhowmik, Rudranil Ghosh, Satakshi Nandy, Sairity Banerjee and Arijit Dutta. Kamal brings a particular connection to the material: he previously played a character modelled on Ray in Anik Dutta's Aparajito, which dramatised the making of Pather Panchali, Ray's 1955 debut. That film was part of a small wave of recent Bengali cinema revisiting Ray's legacy; Kaushik Ganguly's Apur Panchali traced the later life of Subir Banerjee, the child actor who played the young Apu in the same film.

Hoichoi Studios and Friends Communication are producing in association with Piyali Films Pvt. Ltd. — the original producer of Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne. That continuity gives the project a direct line back to the source, more than half a century on.

Mukherji is one of Bengali cinema's most prominent contemporary directors. He won the Indian National Film Award for best director for Chotushkone, with credits including Jaatishwar and Baishe Srabon. His debut feature, Autograph, was an homage to Ray's Nayak. The new film extends a career-long conversation with Ray's work.

The original Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne spawned a trilogy. Ray himself directed the 1980 sequel, Hirak Rajar Deshe, and his son Sandip Ray closed the series with Goopy Bagha Phire Elo in 1992. That same year, Satyajit Ray received an honorary Academy Award for lifetime achievement — weeks before his death — becoming the first Indian filmmaker so honoured.

For a director who has spent his career in dialogue with Ray, Maharaja Tomare Selam turns the lens on a single, decisive chapter: the making of a children's fantasy that almost wasn't, by a man operating under enormous political and personal pressure. Cameras roll in January 2027.