With promotions in full swing for De De Pyaar De 2 where Ajay Devgn once again plays a 50+ man romancing a young girl, the actor is getting to be known as Sequel King. Count Singham, Golmaal, Drishyam, Raid, Son of Sardaar and DDPD among the franchises that Ajay has in his pocket.
But guess who started the sequels craze in Hindi cinema? “I guess I’m the culprit,” Mukesh Bhatt recently admitted in an exclusive that’s yet to be televised. “But,” he explained, “when we chanced upon a story idea which could fit into the Murder or Raaz franchise, we made a sequel. It wasn’t the other way around, just to force a sequel.” Today, Bhatt is sitting on a pile of titles, including Aashiqui, Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahi, Sadak and less memorable ones like Awarapan, Zeher, Kalyug and Jannat.
Most others like Aditya Chopra — who found Dhoom, Tiger and War to be fertile ground for sequels — and Sajid Nadiadwala — who’s held on to Baaghi and Housefull like they’re Alladin’s cave of treasures — have milked saleable titles by going on the floor without a good enough story to back them. Adi’s War 2, whose only pitch was that a Hindi film hero clashed with another from the Deccan, his Tiger 3 that whimpered instead of roaring, Tips’ Race 3 that lost momentum, Devgn’s Son of Sardaar 2 and Nadiadwala’s effete Baaghi collections are all examples of sequels that tried to ride solely on franchise value.
Devgn’s young heroine Rakul Preet Singh drew a difference between other sequels and a franchise that carried forward a story. “We’d ended De De Pyaar De (2019) with me saying, ‘This isn’t the end. I’m not an orphan, let’s see how my family reacts to our love story.’ We had ended the first installment with a window open for the second. So, it’s not a sequel but a continuation,” she pointed out. “And we’ve ended the second with an opening for the third,” added director Anshul Sharma. “We’ve already got a thought for the continuation.”
It’s like Drishyam, which continued telling the story of the family that had buried a body the cops just couldn’t find. The third installment is underway with Mohanlal in Kerala while Ajay is geared to start shooting the Hindi version this December.
When it’s done well, continuing a winning story works at the box office. Although sometimes it can put an end to the variety a filmmaker seeks.
Rakesh Roshan once prided himself on the heterogeneity in his subjects. He made Khudgarz, where he mixed Beckett and Cain and Abel, Karan Arjun, a revenge story with reincarnation as the backdrop, Khoon Bhari Maang where a wife delivers a killer-husband his just deserts, Kaho Naa…Pyaar Hai, which was the perfect launch for his son, and Koi Mil Gaya with which Hrithik Roshan broke free from the conventional hero which had begun to fail.
But once he tasted blood with Krrish, RR couldn’t look beyond the superhero, weaving different stories to keep the franchise flying. Krrish has been his swan song before handing the director’s baton to his son.
Screenplay savvy RR may have called it a day as the captain of the ship but he did put a script in place before handing over Krrish 4 to his son and to Aditya Chopra.
However, as RR himself says, “If you don’t start a film immediately after locking your script, it will keep changing with time.” In other words, Hrithik and Adi have been and will be adding their own touches to the script with RR kept in the loop.
Meanwhile, some may believe that War 2 has put a question mark on the Chopra-Roshan partnership. But one film doesn’t change strong equations and the two Juhu boys are quietly steaming ahead with Krrish 4. Recently, social media saw Hrithik’s winter visit to the US as a vacation. But there’s a whisper that the actor also held important, under the radar meetings in LA for international collaborations. Krrish will take off again.
Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and an author
