Drishyam 3 director Abhishek Pathak rules out part 4 after Rs 500 cr success: ‘Poetic ending’

Drishyam fandom got another lease of life last week, when lead actor Ajay Devgn confirmed the recently released blockbuster threequel, Drishyam: The Conclusion, is indeed the end of the franchise. But he slid in a footnote — in true Vijay Salgaonkar fashion — “… for now”. That offered renewed hope to the fans who began speculating if the Hindi franchise also has a fourth instalment in the pipeline, like the original Malayalam franchise. But now, Drishyam 3 director and producer Abishek Pathak confirms to SCREEN exclusively that there are no plans for Drishyam 4, not even remotely.

“All of us believe this is the last part of the film. Obviously, the audience is loving it, and talking about it. But Drishyam isn’t the franchise where we can just decide to make another film. It’s very much dependent on the story, and the story has ended,” asserts Pathak. But he hopes October 2 continues to be celebrated as Drishyam Day, given its significance and recall value in the story of the franchise.

With his version of Drishyam 3, Pathak wanted to hark back to the first part, released in 2015 and directed by late filmmaker Nishikant Kamat, which established movies as the sole institute for Salgaonkar, a fourth-class dropout. Which is why Salgaonkar feels the way the threequel ends is not only a love letter to the movies, but also a hat tip to the very foundation of the franchise.

“I always thought the ending was very poetic. It’s a love letter to the franchise. The closure is beautifully done. That’s what people liked about it. A lot of people are telling me there can be a part 4. If you get to it, there can be enormous amount of story to it, but that’s not the point. We had to stop it at some point, and this was a beautiful ending to the franchise,” Pathak insists.

He refuses to go deep into the spoilers — whether it’s the climactic skeleton tumbling out of Salgaonkar’s closet or his association with Sister Pereira and the Goan Christian community in the film. “Drishyam 3 is only in its second week right now. People are still coming to theatres in huge numbers. The second weekend was more than Rs 60 crore. That’s a figure too many films don’t achieve even in their lifetime. So, let’s not spoil it for them,” he explains.

Kamlesh Sawant as Gaitonde and Ajay Devgn as Vijay Salgaonkar in Drishyam 3.

A step above Malayalam version

The box office of Drishyam 3, which is closing in on the coveted Rs 500 crore mark worldwide, and has surpassed Rs 315 crore domestically, is also testament to the fact that it’s being lapped up far more than Jeetu Joseph’s Malayalam counterpart, which released earlier this year. Even Mohanlal, who plays Salgaonkar’s counterpart Georgekutty, in that franchise, lauded the way the Hindi franchise has wrapped up.

Devgn had earlier revealed that the Hindi and Malayalam teams had exchanged drafts before choosing to go in different directions. But Pathak claims that he cracked the story way before Joseph came up with that of his Drishyam 3. “So, there was no question of comparison of what would work and what wouldn’t. We never picked up anything from that film,” Pathak maintains.

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The confidence for taking a new direction came from the reception for the 2022 predecessor Drishyam 2, which he also directed. “We just saw what people reacted to after the second part released, and decided to build on that. We wanted to stick to the genre of a thriller instead of going in a completely different direction, which is what the other filmmaker did. It was clear in our head to not divert from the genre and experience of thriller,” adds Pathak.

The Malayalam version of Drishyam 3 dwells more on the family angle, as Georgekutty introspects his actions and even faces the consequences of protecting his family with the cost of physically hurting his daughter. But for Pathak, the risk of sticking to the thriller territory paid off rather handsomely. “I never thought of it as a risk. It’s a risk that every filmmaker takes — of telling a new story. We expected this story will be loved by people, with its idea and treatment. It was just an experiment,” he argues.

But there are certainly some factors that contributed to Drishyam 3 gaining an edge over the Malayalam version. Firstly, the character of IG, played by Asha Sharath in the Malayalam franchise, takes a backseat in the threequel as she’s said to be seeking treatment in the US for the depression caused by the murder of her son. But Tabu, who plays that part of IG Meera Deshmukh in the Hindi franchise, opens the third part with an unexpectedly moving scene — and continues to stay involved throughout.

“It’s the story of two families — the Salgaonkars and the Deshmukhs,” reasons Pathak, explaining his decision to keep Tabu’s character in the thick of things. But he also offers an explanation for those — including filmmaker Sujoy Ghosh — who wished to see more of the actor. “Since it’s the same conflict across the three parts, we had to get a new threat (Jaideep Ahlawat) for Vijay to make it feel new. Keeping that in mind, whatever possibility we had for Tabu’s character, we made that happen,” he says.

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Tabu as IG Meera Deshmukh in Drishyam 3.

Another call was to bring back Kamlesh Sawant’s fan-favourite character of Inspector Gaitonde. “Gaitonde is one of the most loved characters. People hate him, but love him also. He’s funny without doing comedy. His character wasn’t there in the Malayalam Drishyam 2. But we brought him back to give justice to his character. We believe a little comic relief pays off in a genre like this,” says Pathak.

Kamlesh Sawant’s timing is so good that he makes every line funny, even though it’s not written like that,” he adds, reminding this writer of the unexpected laugh-out-loud meta moment when Gaitonde sings “Koi Mil Gaya” when he catches Salgaonkar red-handed, the popular song obviously being from Karan Johar’s 1998 directorial debut Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, starring Devgn’s wife Kajol.

Speaking of meta marketing, even securing October 2 as the release date was a masterstroke on part of Pathak. He reveals that the planning for the same began more than two years ago. “From 2015 till now, October 2 has come on Friday only thrice or four times. So, the luck and timing were great. I cracked the story in 2024. Obviously, it’d have taken a year and a half to write the screenplay. We managed to write, shoot, and release the film within two years. That was a big task. The marketing happened organically because October 2 every year is Drishyam Day. People start talking about pav bhaji automatically on the internet,” says the filmmaker.

But Pathak also believes none of the marketing or technical prowess would’ve landed had they not enjoyed a tight grip on the material. “We can’t make a boring film, and say craft achha tha. People are not sitting there to judge the craft. They’re there to have a good time. So, you should make an entertaining film, and within that, show your craft. That’s where both the critics and the audience come in,” he says.

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Also Read — Truly impressed’: Mohanlal praises Ajay Devgn’s Drishyam 3 amid Malayalam vs Hindi debate

Having now pulled off the rare feat of making a better Bollywood remake of a Malayalam film, Pathak believes Hindi cinema just needs to dial up its conviction in order to redeem its fading glory. “We have the benefit of a pan-India audience, since Hindi is spoken in a lot of states. We just need more theatres. That’s very important. We’re shying away a little from experimenting with content. We do a lot of stuff that Malayalam cinema doesn’t, and vice-versa. But we’re there. I think we’ll do great now,” he adds, signing off.