New Delhi:
Imtiaz Ali, who had a blissful year with his sleeper hit ‘Main Vadaan Aunga’, recently opened up about how people thought Dhurandhar was an ‘impractical’ film when it was doing the studio rounds.
At the 24th Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, the director said, “I think something very interesting is happening in the film industry. We are in that delicious period where people are saying that something is not working. Should we go with big stars, non-stars… what is going to work? People are saying that the audience is not missing attention, but the films that are working well are three hours long. An example of what is successful, but the length of that film. Look!
He added, “Forget the fact that when Dhurandhar was originally conceived and it was doing the rounds of those studios, people thought it was the most impractical film, with the least chance of success! But it broke all the rules, and after that everyone wants to make it. We are all wondering what will work. The language may change, but I feel it is going into a phase in the film industry.”
Dhurandhar Losing in the Oscar race
Starring Ranveer Singh Dhurandhar And its sequel Dhurandhar: Revenge were among the films considered by the jury to represent India at the 2027 Academy Awards. But despite two films being among the biggest Hindi releases of the year, neither made it to the final selection. Vivek Vaswani, a member of the jury, has now explained the reason.
Vaswani said that the NDTV jury did not consider Dhurandhar or Dhurandhar: Revenge To become an Oscar contender. He also said that the films did not represent Indian culture in the way the jury was looking for when deciding on India’s official submission.
Voting numbers offer another insight into the jury’s decision. When asked how many votes there are Dhurandhar Out of the 14-member jury, Vaswani said the film got only four votes.
This comment came after the announcement of the Marathi film by the Film Federation of India knotted As India’s official entry for the 2027 Oscars in the Best International Feature Film category. Directed and written by Santosh Dwakhar, knotted 14 Hindi films, four Marathi films, four Telugu films, three Gujarati films, three Tamil films, one Malayalam film, one Nepali film and one film from Nagaland emerged from the field.
The jury had the final three films Gangal, organ And i will be back with knotted Finally getting selected.
DhurandharDirected by Aditya Dhar, it starred Ranveer Singh, Akshay Khanna, Sanjay Dutt, R Madhavan, Arjun Rampal, Rakesh Bedi and Sara Arjun. The first part hits theaters in December 2025, followed by the second installment in March 2026.
Also read this | The Ramayana Set to premiere at IFFI 2026, Dhurandhar To open the Indian panorama