The all-time blockbuster success of Pathaan has changed the game for India’s 50-year-old premium production company, Yash Raj Films. The Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, and John Abraham starrer action spectacle not only ended the banner’s recent streak of flops, but it also propelled YRF back to the top league once again. Pathaan marked the official launch of Aditya Chopra’s proposed SPY UNIVERSE, and its enormous success at the global box office has only boosted the filmmaker’s confidence to take it to new heights going forward.
YRF has planned to devote 50% of its theatrical slate to the spy universe and has lined up two movies in the franchise for the next two years. Hrithik Roshan will return as Major Kabir Dhaliwal, locking horns with Telugu superstar Jr. NTR in the Ayan Mukerji-directed War 2, and that will eventually be followed by the epic face-off between Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan’s spy characters. While Tiger Vs. Pathaan has already been in news, Peepingmoon.com has now exclusively learned that Aditya Chopra has locked in Siddharth Anand to direct this massive showdown flick, termed as India's biggest action movie production ever.
"Aditya Chopra has envisioned Tiger Vs. Pathan as a grand visual spectacle that has never been seen before in Indian cinema. The film requires to be mounted in the grandest manner possible, and who's a better choice than Siddharth Anand, who has consistently proved himself the best Bollywood filmmaker for an action film with big spectacles like Bang Bang, War, and the most recent Pathaan? Aditya Chopra trusts Siddharth with his vision and will give him all the support to direct India’s two biggest superstars, Salman Khan and SRK, together in a full-fledged movie 28 years after their iconic brotherhood saga, Karan Arjun (1995)," a source close to the development told us, adding that Siddharth will begin working on this film shortly after finishing his highly anticipated Hrithik Roshan and Deepika Padukone starrer Fighter.
This mega-action extravaganza will apparently carry forward the events of War 2. The plot of the second installment of Hrithik Roshan's film is connected to Tiger Vs. Pathaan. Aditya Chopra has locked down the basic plot for the film and is presently developing the screenplay with Shridhar Raghavan. Both SRK and Salman have agreed to the idea and have given their dates for next year. The film will go on floors in February 2024, with a tentative release planned in early 2025.
Tiger Vs. Pathaan marks Yash Raj Films’ seventh film in the Spy Universe, starring the biggest of the Bollywood stars. The franchise began in 2012 with Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif’s Ek Tha Tiger and was continued with its second part, Tiger Zinda Hai, in 2017. Hrithik Roshan entered the universe later with Siddharth Anand’s War in 2019, only to be followed by the charming Shah Rukh Khan as the exiled RAW agent Pathaan this January. The next film in the franchise is Salman and Katrina’s Tiger 3, which will hit cinemas over the Diwali weekend this year.