Director Ram Gopal Varma has been consistently sharing his views and plaudits on Ranveer Singh's Dhurandhar. The Aditya Dhar spy action drama, released on December 5, has already raked in huge numbers, breaching the Rs 1000 crore mark recently and is eyeing Rs 1100 crore soon. The filmmaker, who had earlier written a detailed on the film on his X handle, shared his big hopes for the second part of the film, noting that "if part one scared audiences, then the second will terrify them (sic)." He also stated that the film had "kicked back" South Indian cinema's "invasion into Bollywood", proving that Bollywood is also capable of producing high-octane action films.
The Satya director had earlier called Dhurandhar a "quantum leap" in Indian cinema. "I believe that Aditya Dhar has completely and single-handedly changed the future of Indian cinema, be it north or south." In another post, he had compared the Uri filmmaker to Francis Ford Coppola, saying, "From Coppola I learnt intense closeted drama, which I tried to emulate in Satya, Company, Sarkar etc. But now Dhurandhar shows that approach can work far more effectively with scale." He further appreciated him for refusing to glorify the heroes. "Dhurandhar invents a never-before-seen or experienced new kind of elevation in creating flawed but consequence-driven heroes. Making a star disappear into the story is a new one."
Dhurandhar follows the story of an Indian intelligence operative (Ranveer Singh as Hamza Ali Mazari), who infiltrates Pakistan's underworld at the behest of an Indian spymaster Ajay Sanyal (Madhavan). It also takes a critical look at the government's failure to ensure national safety with passages inspired by real events, such as the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
The cast also features Akshaye Khanna as Rehman Dakait, R Madhavan as Ajay Sanyal, Sanjay Dutt as Chaudhary Aslam, and Arjun Rampal as Major Iqbal of the ISI. Sara Arjun took on the role of the female lead for the first time in this film after being part of several projects as a child actor.
As reported earlier, Dhurandhar 2 is set for a March 19, 2026, release in theatres. Apart from Hindi, the film's makers are set to release its sequel in Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, and Telugu as well.
