Prashant Kumar "Fanney Khan" (Anil Kapoor), a part-time vocalist in an orchestra, dreams of becoming a singer but circumstances prevent him from being one. He rushes to the hospital and holds his newborn daughter, whom he names Lata, which is the name of famous singer Lata Mangeshkar.

Lata has a really good voice but she is made fun of because she is overweight. She is a big fan of Baby Singh (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan), a famous singer, who is fed up of her life and wants a break. Prashant's factory is closed and he starts working as a taxi driver.

One day, coincidentally, Baby Singh travels in Prashant's taxi. When she asks for water, Prashant mixes sleeping pills in the water bottle. He calls his best friend Adhir (Rajkummar Rao) and tells him that he is kidnapping Baby Singh to release an album of his daughter. With a lot of request, Adhir agrees to help him.

During this incident, Adhir and Baby Singh become really good friends. Adhir finally takes her out and she starts enjoying herself. She also thanks him for bringing her dog, Ustaad, who she considers to be her true friend but problems arise when Prashant watches the TV where police get to know that Baby Singh is kidnapped as the watchman of Baby Singh's house reveals that he saw a man(Adhir) kidnap her dog.

Prashant asks Baby's director to release an album of his daughter but wears a mask of Rajnikant. Lata is really excited about her own album and after recording, she talks about her experience from which, the director gets to know that her father is the kidnapper and he is famous with the name of Fanney Khan. He recognizes him in their next meeting. Prashant finally removes his mask and reveals that he can trust him and his friend Adhir.

Lata is replaced by Baby Singh to perform in Reality Show(India ki Awaaz). Meanwhile, Adhir and Baby are nowhere to be found. Police and TV reporters agree to cast him live with his daughter before she performs. Lata realizes that the song she is going to sing was written by her father. She sings and makes her parents feel proud.

Later, a video releases where Baby and Adhir are in a live-in relationship and are on vacation. They both admit that they are a big fan of Lata Sharma. The film ends with the society praising Lata and the hard work done by Prashant to make his daughter a singer.

• Anil Kapoor as Prashant Kumar Sharma "Fanney Khan"
• Aishwarya Rai Bachchan as Baby Singh aka Sumitra Singh
• Rajkummar Rao as Adhir
• Divya Dutta as Kavita Sharma
• Pihu Sand as Lata Sharma
• Satish Kaushik as Kader Bhai
• Barbie Rajput as Rhea
• Girish Kulkarni as Karan Kakkad
• Swati Semwal as Jinal
• Suddu Ali as Zina

Development

In June 2016, it was announced that Anil Kapoor would play the lead role in a Rakesh Omprakash Mehra production, which was tentatively titled Fanney Khan. The film is an official remake of the Dominique Deruddere-directed Belgian Dutch-language satirical comedy Everybody's Famous! (2001). The original was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 73rd Academy Awards, and follows the relationship between a father and her teenage girl, whom he forces to be a singer. Fanney Khan was directed by debutant Atul Manjrekar, who had previously directed television advertisements and was a close associate of Mehra. Other than Kapoor and Mehra, members of the cast and crew were not finalized when the production was announced. Musical recording and other preparations began on 20 June 2016, and auditions were initiated for the role of two teenage characters.

In October 2016, Priyanka Chopra was approached to play the role of a pop singer and expressed her willingness to join the project prior to signing the contract. Chopra later rejected the film. Mehra was keen to cast either Chopra, Katrina Kaif or Kareena Kapoor for the role and had approached both Chopra and Kaif; however, producer Prernaa Arora of KriArj Entertainment wanted Aishwarya Rai to play the character and directly approached her. In June 2017, KriArj released a statement conveying that they were co-producing the film along with Mehra's company and T-Series Films. The announcement also declared that the role of the pop singer would be played by Rai. Arjun N. Kapoor of KriArj conveyed that the film dealt with a father-daughter relationship and said, "Fanney Khan is a very emotional story that needs to be told." The film marked the third collaboration between Kapoor and Rai after Taal (1999) and Hamara Dil Aapke Paas Hai (2000).

In August 2017, reports suggested that R. Madhavan was being considered to play the romantic interest of Rai's character. Arora declined to acknowledge the rumours, adding that she couldn't confirm the news before anything was decided. She stated that Mehra and Manjrekar were searching for a suited actor to play the character up to that time. On 31 August 2017, Madhavan stated that he couldn't play a role in the film owing to conflicting schedules with his other multilingual film ventures. On the same day, Mehra publicly revealed that Rajkummar Rao would play the role opposite Rai through his Twitter handle. Rao stated that he would attend workshops and readings in preparation after filming for the web-series Bose: Dead/Alive in Poland.

Mehra had intially approached Kapoor in 2013 with the idea of a remake and gave him a DVD of Everybody's Famous!. At the time, Kapoor did not take Mehra's request seriously. During the production of Mirzya, which was directed by Mehra and starred Kapoor's son Harshvardhan Kapoor, he was approached again by the film's financer and distributor to consider the proposal. Kapoor then watched the original, and realized that he was foolish in not agreeing to do the film earlier. Mehra and Kapoor then procured the rights to remake Everybody's Famous! from its makers. He played the role of a middle-aged singer and father in Fanney Khan, which was the second time he portrayed a singer in his career after Woh Saat Din (1983). Kapoor felt that no film in Bollywood had previously dealt with the subject of body-shaming. The film's subject also has parallels to his real life.

Manjrekar joined the film after Mehra asked him if he wanted to direct the subject.^[19] He felt that it was a very relevant subject.^[20] Manjrekar felt that the film merely retained the "soul and essence" of the original.^[21]

Filming

Principal photography of Fanney Khan commenced on 3 September 2017 in Mumbai.^[22] The initial filming schedule only included Kapoor, Divya Dutta and debutant actress Pihu Sand. Both Rao and Rai later joined the film on 3 October 2017.^[23] On 6 October 2017, Rai refused to film as she wasn't satisfied with the costumes assigned to her; as a result, shooting was postponed to late October and Rai's costume designer, Manish Malhotra, was asked to redesign the clothes.^[24]

Filming was supposed to resume on 26 October 2017, but was further postponed after Rao fractured his leg while filming for the Farah Khan and Ali Asgar-hosted television show Lip Sing Battle.^[25] Eventually, Rai began filming her scenes along with Kapoor on 5 November 2017 in Mumbai.^[26] While filming, some photographs featuring Kapoor and Rai were leaked from the set.^[27] In April 2018, filming was stalled by crew members who were not paid their dues.^[28] That was the fourth time a KriArj Entertainment production got entangled in a financial controversy.^[29] KriArj had had to part ways with Parmanu (2018), Kedarnath and Batti Gul Meter Chalu after facing a similar issue.^[30] In May 2018, the company opted out of Fanney Khan to resolve all matters concerning the production house;^[31] Bhushan Kumar of T-Series took over the task of completing the production.^[32]

Rai's introduction song, titled "Mohabbat", was choreographed by Frank Gatson Jr., who had previously worked with Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce and Rihanna, among others.^[33] In June 2018, Rai completed the rehearsal for her entry sequence.^[34] On 19 June 2018, the final filming schedule was completed at Mehboob Studios in Mumbai.^[35] A wrap up party was held at the studio, and was attended by all members of the cast.^[36]