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In the paranoid, high-stakes world of Vijay Salgaonkar, a secret is only as safe as the number of people who know it — a principle that director Abhishek Pathak took seriously while filming Drishyam: The Conclusion, billed as the franchise's final chapter.
With massive audience anticipation and internet sleuths hunting for leaks, Pathak executed an elaborate operation on his own set to protect the climax and final twist of Drishyam 3, which is different from the Malayalam version starring Mohanlal that released earlier this year.
For most film productions, department heads and crew members receive complete bound scripts weeks before camera rolling. On Drishyam: The Conclusion, Pathak systematically withheld the final pages from most on set.
“Initially, the script was not given to a lot of people in the crew,” Pathak reveals. “We were holding the draft as long as possible, until people began coming to my door and asking for the script as they had to start working! Only then I gave it to them... but without the climax."
"So a lot of crew members didn't know the climax of the film! It wasn't given to a lot of people because we were a little worried.”
When Department Heads (HODs) asked for details to prepare their setups, Pathak managed them on a strict "need-to-know" basis.
“For some HODs, knowing the climax was not going to change their preparation. They really didn't have to worry about what he (Vijay) would do in that particular scene. So I'd tell them, 'I'll give you a brief about what I need from you in this particular scene... but you don't need to know what exactly is happening at this point,'" Pathak laughs, adding, "Having said that, the whole crew is a family. We've been working since the second part, so they all know how important this film is for even them. Everyone has been nice and understanding."
The secrecy wasn't just about preventing on-set leaks; it was also about staying three steps ahead of fan theories that flooded social media after Drishyam 2. Pathak spent months monitoring forums like Reddit specifically to learn what viewers were expecting, and then discarded those options entirely.
“I actually went through a lot of fan theories on Reddit and the Internet. We were like, ‘Four people are talking about this, five people are talking about that... so it cannot happen.’ We were trying to stay away from the obvious, and come with something that people weren't expecting at all."
Pathak reveals that the precise mechanics of the climax were being continually recalibrated inside the edit room months after shooting, using scratch voiceovers and temporary cuts to fine-tune what the audience sees.
“We shot the film, came on the edit, and there was maybe a 10-day shoot pending. In the pending shoot, we actually recorded voice-overs and put everything on the edit to make it better... to hide information and reveal certain things in a way that people enjoy it much better.”
For Pathak, the extreme measures were the only way to ensure that when the audiences finally watch the film, the shock lands with total and non-compromised force.
“The climax is the real (star of the) show,” Pathak says. “If the big reveal can be held for as long as possible, that's the best thing."