Before the IPL final in Ahmedabad — will the teaser of Hera Pheri 3 featuring Akshay Kumar, Paresh Rawal and Suniel Shetty — be released?

The third edition of Hera Pheri and the fifth of Housefull are making news with Akshay toplining both franchises. What else is common is there’s more to it than meets the eye in both films.

When the trailer of Housefull 5 was launched with 18 masked actors on stage, Akshay Kumar practically took over compere Nitin Kakkad’s job as he unmasked each actor and asked, “Who could’ve killed the billionaire on his 100th birthday party?” The 82-year-old Ranjeet, who plays the billionaire, chuckled, “Usually I’m the one who’s murdering people. For a change, I get killed.” From Abhishek Bachchan, Nana Patekar and Riteish Deshmukh to Jacqueline, Fardeen and Chunky, anybody could’ve murdered the billionaire just before he announced his true heir Jolly.

Producer Sajid Nadiadwala also threw baits like “We have two endings, two murderers. Viewers will have a choice to watch the ending they want.” But Sanjay Dutt (playing a cop along with Jackie Shroff) was present only as a cardboard cutout on stage. He’s busy with a shoot, said someone. But while the whole lineup of actors exulted over fun times shooting on the cruise, a little bird chirped that Sanjay was not a part of it. “He didn’t get a UK visa,” said the bird. “Whether it was really that or he didn’t want to join the cruise, one doesn’t know. His portions were shot here.”

Thrillers like Death On The Nile (2022), Cruise Ship Murder (2022) and Murder On The Orient Express (2017) also depict a murder plot aboard a cruise or train. So there is chatter around the mishmash of thrillers seen before and whether a murder story will do justice to the comedy franchise. Alongside is another whisper that a la director Tarun Mansukhani’s earlier film Dostana (2008) wherein Bobby Deol made a surprise appearance to walk away with the heroine, there will be an unannounced entry by a huge star who’ll swagger in as the real Jolly. Will it be Sajid’s old favourite Salman Khan? Tarun will keep it Rohit Shetty style and unveil him like the Singham/Simmba franchise did when Akshay came in at the tail end as Sooryavanshi.

Meanwhile, what is happening to Hera Pheri 3, which has previously been announced with actors as diverse as John and Kartik Aaryan but never took off? A mess has followed the fresh announcement of the third edition. Curiously, director Priyadarshan who’d stayed out of the second (Phir Hera Pheri, 2006) saying he didn’t want to “revisit familiar territory and stifle his creativity”, returned as captain. While Priyan staged a prodigal return, Paresh Rawal who’d initially said yes, decided against playing Baburao a third time. Maybe it’s his turn to not stifle his creativity. Meanwhile, Akshay Kumar who’s normally known to settle matters quietly, did the unprecedented by taking the legal route against Paresh and asking for ₹25 crore. Not cowing down, Paresh has publicly said that his lawyers would be taking care of it. Parallelly, questions have been floated about the ownership of the franchise. However, Akshay usually bats only after padding up with legal advice. Also, Priyan has said that he has personally seen the ₹10 crore agreement between the actor and producer Firoz Nadiadwala, which gives the actor the rights to the entire franchise including IPR.

Will the strong-willed Akshay-Paresh settle it and let Govinda or Pankaj Tripathi step in as Baburao? Unfortunately, Paresh has nursed a grudge against Akshay for quite a while. It was Paresh’s Gujarati play Kanji Viruddh Kanji that was turned into the 2012 film Oh My God (OMG). But when OMG2 was made, Pankaj Tripathi was brought in and Paresh quietly dropped from the franchise.

There is more hera pheri going on behind the scenes than on the screen.

Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and an author