Student Of The Year is done being candyfloss.

According to a source quoted by Bollywood Hungama, the third installment of Karan Johar's youth franchise won't be a film at all. It's being made as a web series for JioHotstar, produced under Johar's Dharmatic Entertainment, and it's shedding the breezy college-romance skin of its predecessors for something considerably darker.

"Student Of The Year 3 is darker, edgier and far more intense than the previous two instalments," the source told the outlet, describing the tone as a mix of Netflix's Class and HBO's Euphoria — privileged campuses, tangled friendships, relationships that don't stay tidy. The source added that this kind of edgy, youth-driven content "has an audience across markets," which is trade-speak for: they think this travels.

That's a real swing. The 2012 original, directed by Johar himself, launched Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt and Sidharth Malhotra into stardom on the strength of pure, unbothered fun. Student Of The Year 2 in 2019, directed by Punit Malhotra and fronted by Tiger Shroff, introduced Ananya Panday and Tara Sutaria the same way, with Alia dropping by for a song. Both films sold a fantasy. This one, if the description holds, is selling friction.

Shanaya Kapoor, who impressed in this year's Tu Yaa Main, is set to headline, and reports suggest she'll play a double role. Reema Maya directs. Neither casting detail nor Maya's involvement changes the bigger story here, which is the format itself. A franchise built for single-screen and multiplex is being handed to a streaming platform and, evidently, a much harder edge.

There's also a title question hanging over the whole thing. Some reports have floated Student Of The Year 3 – After The Dark as the name, but the Bollywood Hungama source was careful to say that may not be final. Read: don't print it as gospel yet. An official announcement is expected to settle it.

On timing, the source said the series is expected to release this year on JioHotstar, though no date has been locked in publicly. Given how late in the year we already are, that's a tight window if it's going to hold.

Worth flagging: everything here comes from a single unnamed source cited by one outlet. Dharmatic and JioHotstar haven't confirmed the format switch, the tone comparison or Shanaya's reported double role. Until Johar's camp puts out an official announcement, treat the darker rebrand as the story, not the certainty.

What happens next is simple enough. Either Dharmatic confirms the pivot with a formal reveal, complete with title and date, or this stays scoop territory a while longer. Given how much noise a Euphoria-flavoured Student Of The Year would generate the moment it's official, don't expect Johar's team to sit on this for too long.