Lights, Camera, Scoop | 'Dhurandhar' Box-Office Update; Aditya Dhar Cuts Sequel's Trailer With No Extra Shoot for Akshaye Khanna
The Hollywood Reporter India's weekly column 'Lights, Camera, Scoop' unravels the behind-the-scenes madness of the big Bollywood machinery.
Will he or won't he? A month after the historic run of Aditya Dhar's Dhurandhar, there were reports that the filmmaker was exploring additional shoots for the sequel to significantly expand the arc of one of the film’s most discussed characters: Rehman Dakait, brought to life by the enigmatic Akshaye Khanna.
Reports suggested that Khanna would return as his character for a special shoot, portions of which will be incorporated in Dhurandhar 2, gearing up for a global release in March. However, industry sources have denied that any such shoot is on the cards, though Khanna would very much be a part of the sequel.
“There is no additional filming happening with Akshaye Khanna at the moment. His portions were wrapped earlier and are part of key flashback moments in the narrative,” reported Pinkvilla.
According to the said report, the team of Dhurandhar is currently working on the trailer cut for the sequel, which they aim to drop by the end of February, with Dhar locking the edit soon. “Shashwat Sachdev has simultaneously begun work on the film’s background score. Both sound and visuals are being treated as top priority," the publication quoted a source.
These developments come at a time when Dhurandhar is still marching strong at the box-office, creating new records almost every day. The latest is that the film has entered the top five Indian blockbusters of all time.
According to Box Office India, the film is likely to end its global run with a worldwide gross of about ₹1250 crore. These are trade figures, so they will be less than the official producers' collections.
Dhurandhar has emerged as the highest-grossing Hindi language film worldwide, beating the figures of Shah Rukh Khan's Jawan, which had claimed the top spot with ₹1060 crore. The other four films in the list include Pushpa 2 (₹1050 crore), Pathaan (₹1010 crore) and Stree 2 (₹835 crore).
The film has also entered the overall top five Indian grossers of all-time, and that too with a single-language format, unlike others, which were pan-India and were dubbed even in other global languages. The top spot is held by Aamir Khan's
Dangal (₹2020 crore) followed by SS Rajamouli's Bahubali: The Conclusion at ₹1800 crore. Both the titles had a China release, which boosted the box-office collections.
The third spot is bagged by Pushpa 2 at ₹1675 crore, followed by RRR at ₹1275 crore. Dhurandhar is at rank five, with an expected global gross of ₹1250 crore.