At the Goa trailer launch, Devgn insisted the Hindi threequel shares nothing with Malayalam's Drishyam 3 beyond the title and the family at its centre.
Ajay Devgn spent much of the Drishyam The Conclusion trailer launch doing two things at once. Selling the film, sure. But also drawing a boundary line around it, because the internet has spent months mixing up his October release with Mohanlal's own Drishyam 3, which also arrived in 2026.
The event, held in Goa, pulled together most of the cast, according to Bollywood Hungama, which covered the launch. Shriya Saran, Jaideep Ahlawat, Tabu, Rajat Kapoor and Mrunal Jadhav showed up alongside producers Kumar Mangat Pathak, Alok Jain and Ajit Andhare. Director-writer Abhishek Pathak and writer Aamil Keeyan Khan were there too, since between them they spent two and a half years cracking a script Devgn himself once thought was close to impossible to write.
That's not an exaggeration on his part, going by what he said on stage. After Drishyam 2 released in 2022, Devgn wasn't convinced a third instalment could work at all. Starting a story from where a sequel left off and still keeping it sharp is hard enough. Doing it a second time, with an audience that's already seen every twist coming, is harder.
Abhishek Pathak apparently walked in with an idea that changed his mind. Devgn's read on it now: the writing has grown from Drishyam 2 to this one, enough that he's comfortable calling time on the franchise. "Iske oopar jaane ka attempt bhi nahin karna chahiye," he said, more or less arguing that a good ending should stay an ending rather than get stretched into a fourth film nobody asked for.
Then there's the Mohanlal question, which he tackled head on. The Hindi Drishyam 2 borrowed its bones from the Malayalam original. This one doesn't, he insisted, calling the two threequels completely separate scripts rather than one adapted from the other. Whether that convinces audiences already confused by two films sharing a name and a surname for their lead family is a different matter.
What he did make clear is that he wants Mohanlal to actually watch it. "Ek unka bhi approval mil jaaye and I hope they love it. I am dying for them to see it," Devgn said, by his own account. It's a small thing, but it says something that after three films built around the same moral dilemma, in two languages, across more than a decade, the actor still wants the nod from the original.
Drishyam The Conclusion opens in cinemas on October 2, a Friday, going up against a crowded festive corridor. Whether Vijay Salgaonkar's Hindi run out-earns his Malayalam counterpart's, or whether Mohanlal even gets around to watching it before then, is anyone's guess for now.
Be the first to comment
Join the argument. No password, just your email or a passkey.