Contrary to media reports, Pink director Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury denies having approached Saif Ali Khan for his next film which is reportedly a thriller. The actor, whose next film Chef releases in the first week of October, is already in the midst of the shooting of Bazaar for Nikhil Advani and the web series Sacred Games. Expressing surprise at the news, Aniruddha said, “I haven’t spoken to Saif or anyone for the matter because I am still working on the script.”

The director also squashed the rumour that his next project was a thriller. Earlier, there was talk that after Pink, Aniruddha was working on another woman-centric film. But he told Peeping Moon.com, “It’s not a thriller.”

He said he was working on an original story but added, “It’s at a very premature stage right now.”Pink was Aniruddha’s Bollywood debut. Before that, he had done four Bengali films, one of which won him the Best Feature Film National Award in 2008. “All my stories in Bengali had social content. My next in Hindi, too, will have something important – a socially relevant message for sure.”

Pink, which released in 2016, raised questions about women’s safety. It also showed how society was quick to judge the “character” of a woman. Amitabh Bachchan played the role of a lawyer in Pink who raised this issue. The cast included Taapsee Pannu, Andrea Tariang and Kirti Kulkarni.  The film won the Best Film on Social Issues at the 64th National Film Awards.

After Pink, Aniruddha worked on a short film called Baiju Bulli in Bengali that tackled the acute water shortage problem in Indian villages. Speculation was rife in Bollywood that Aniruddha might work with Priyanka Chopra in his next woman-centric film. But sources say he has kept this project on hold to work on the “thriller” with Saif Ali Khan. Now with the filmmaker shooting down that report, Bollywood is waiting to see what Aniruddha will do next and with whom.