I understand why audiences keep returning to Drishyam. The central pleasure is almost antique by current Bollywood standards: actions have consequences, information matters and a character survives by thinking rather than by acquiring a slow-motion entrance. The latest film’s box-office strength, reflected in Bollywood Hungama’s 2026 collection table, confirms that viewers will reward a story whose machinery they can enjoy following. My worry is what the industry learns from that reward. Bollywood rarely sees a successful tightly written film and concludes that it should invest in more tightly written films. It concludes that the title, cast and intellectual property must be extended until the audience files for separation. A franchise can be artistically legitimate. But “people like plots” and “people want only sequels” are not the same message.
The pleasure of competence
Drishyam’s appeal begins with competence. The protagonist observes, remembers and constructs. The screenplay asks viewers to do the same. Even when the contrivances show, the film treats attention as pleasurable. That is refreshing in an industry that often confuses confusion with complexity. Too many thrillers hide information arbitrarily, unveil a villain from another screenplay or use a final monologue to explain the film they failed to dramatise. Drishyam establishes rules and lets suspense grow from whether those rules can withstand pressure. The audience becomes an accomplice and examiner. We are not merely waiting to see who is punched.
Ajay Devgn’s controlled screen presence suits this design because he can suggest calculation without decorating every thought. Hindi cinema once had many stars capable of stillness. Now performers are often directed as if silence will cause the algorithm to lose interest. Devgn’s best work understands that a lowered voice can carry more threat than a speech. But star suitability should not become star worship. The franchise depends on writing, editing, supporting performances and the Malayalam original’s conceptual foundation. Bollywood’s old habit is to credit the hero when a machine works and blame “content” when it fails. That accounting keeps nepotism and vanity alive because it makes craft labour invisible.
A hit becomes an instruction manual
The film’s strong advance and continuing sales are visible in the site’s October 10 advance-booking tracker. Numbers matter because commercial cinema requires an audience, but real-time box-office culture has damaged how we discuss movies. Viewers now speak like junior distributors: opening, occupancy, screen count, verdict. A film becomes admirable because strangers purchased enough tickets before we have decided whether the second act works. Producers naturally track revenue. Critics and audiences need not turn every conversation into an earnings call.
The success will encourage more continuations, remakes and “universes.” Some will be enjoyable. Most will mistake recognition for affection. A familiar title reduces marketing risk, but each repetition also spends the audience’s trust. The first sequel must deepen the moral problem, not merely create another authority figure who almost discovers the same secret. A conclusion should conclude. If the studio leaves every door open for a spin-off, the narrative’s apparent finality becomes product packaging. I would rather miss a good character than watch that character become an employee who cannot resign.
The remake question is not settled by quality
There is a lazy argument that remakes are inherently inferior and another lazy argument that only execution matters. Cultural translation is a real creative act. Languages carry different social textures; stars bring histories; police, family and class may function differently across regions. A worthwhile remake does more than reproduce plot beats with costlier lighting. The Hindi Drishyam films found a broad audience partly because their performers and setting made the material legible within a different star system. That achievement does not erase the original or grant the remake ownership of its invention.
Bollywood should be more honest about sources and more curious about why regional industries generate stories it later purchases. The answer is not genetic creativity. Smaller markets sometimes allow writers and directors to work with less star interference, sharper genre identities and lower financial expectations. Hindi cinema’s scale can encourage timidity: when budgets swell, every edge is sanded down to please an imaginary universal family. Then an adapted thriller succeeds, and executives celebrate the star rather than the narrative discipline they imported. Credit the writers, advertise the source and learn from the production conditions.
Nepotism survives genre cinema too
People imagine that plot-driven films automatically defeat nepotism because the story is the star. I wish. Connections influence who gets auditions, second chances, publicity and the luxury of failing upward in every genre. The remedy is not social-media harassment of actors born into film families; nobody chooses a parent. The remedy is a professional casting culture in which roles are tested widely and performance has consequences. A competent franchise should use its commercial security to cast adventurous supporting actors, hire writers with distinct voices and promote technicians as creators. Instead, success often makes producers more conservative.
The classics I love were not created by pretending audiences had no memory. They combined stars with music, performance and storytelling rigorous enough to survive outside opening weekend. We should stop using “mass” as a euphemism for careless. Indian audiences understand exposition, irony, moral ambiguity and silence. Drishyam’s popularity demonstrates precisely that. Its viewers are willing to retain details across hours and films. Why, then, does the rest of the industry so often address them as distracted children?
The right lesson
The right lesson from Drishyam is simple and demanding: screenplay architecture has commercial value. Establish motives, plant information fairly, let characters make intelligent choices and force those choices to carry moral cost. Then cast performers who serve the film rather than asking the film to serve their image. None of this guarantees a hit. Cinema has no fixed deposit. It does, however, create work worthy of the audience’s time.
I am glad a disciplined thriller can dominate cinemas. I am less thrilled by the likely parade of numbered titles it will inspire. Bollywood should treat this success as a vote for writers, not merely for warranties. If Drishyam truly reaches its conclusion, let it leave behind something rarer than another universe: an industry briefly persuaded that viewers enjoy being asked to think.
