‘Drishyam 2’ director Abhishek Pathak says some people relate film more with Ajay Devgn than Mohanlal

‘Drishyam 2’, starring Ajay Devgn, Tabu, and Shriya Saran, received the second biggest opening for Bollywood this year. The film earned ₹65 crore across India in its first three days, surpassing the opening weekend collections of all Hindi films except ‘Brahmastra’.
Director Abhishek Pathak opened up about the journey and the film’s cultural impact on the Hindi-speaking audience.

According to Hindustan Times, Abhishek said that the sequel of ‘Drishyam’ was planned even before Malayalam ‘Drishyam 2’ was released. He said that before the film came out on OTT, they had bought the rights to it.

‘We saw the film and loved it. By November 2020, we got the rights and then we started developing it,’ he said.
He further said that there is no point in making a frame-to-frame remake because as a director one has to bring their vision to the table. He said if it’s a copy, people will talk about that aspect and reduce your audience.

For the unversed, ‘Drishyam’ is the remake of the Malayalam film of the same name.
However, the filmmaker agrees that changes need to be planned carefully so as to avoid ruining the essence of the original.

‘When you start rewriting something, you always mark out things you don’t want to touch. The idea is to not damage it. See, we got the rights to something we loved and there’s no point changing that. We have to stick to the soul of the film, including the twist and turns. But the screenplay can change. Malayalam films are a little different as compared to Hindi films. The audiences are different as well. So we need that change. So yes, changing the screenplay of a remake is important but you have to be careful,’ he said.

Abhishek also talked about how many believe that the popularity of the Ajay Devgn-starrer Hindi version has surpassed the Malayalam original, which starred Mohanlal.

The director said that every year on October 2, there are memes about Vijay Salgaonkar and his family. It’s fun. He added that Mohanlal sir is a great actor, a very established actor but the Hindi audiences relate ‘Drishyam’ somewhere more with Vijay Salgaonkar and Ajay Devgn.

‘And even though the Malayalam sequel was out, many people didn’t watch it as they wanted to see the Hindi version first. That is because they relate so much with Ajay sir. The Malayalam Drishyam is a brilliant film but they somewhere chose to hold on till the Hindi version was released,’ Hindustan Times quoted Abhishek as saying.

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