Drishyam 3 Is Turning Suspense Into a Franchise

Most modern movie franchises are fairly easy to recognise. There are explosions. Enormous budgets. Returning villains. Characters who stubbornly refuse to stay dead. Eventually somebody announces a cinematic universe.

Then there is Drishyam.

The Hindi franchise has just returned with Drishyam 3: The Conclusion, and within three days it had reportedly sailed past ₹270 crore worldwide. Ajay Devgn is back as Vijay Salgaonkar, Tabu returns as Meera Deshmukh and the audience has once again turned up in huge numbers to watch a middle-class family spend several hours trying to stay one step ahead of the police. No superheroes. No international assassins. Very few capes. Just an increasingly complicated lie.

And somehow, it has become one of Hindi cinema’s most dependable franchises.

That is impressive because Drishyam is built around something most franchises eventually destroy: suspense. The first film worked because we were constantly wondering whether Vijay’s carefully constructed story would collapse. The second had an even harder job because audiences already knew exactly how clever he was. By the third film, everyone entering the cinema is suspicious of absolutely everything he does. If Vijay buys a newspaper, we assume the newspaper will become critically important approximately 90 minutes later.

That creates a wonderful problem for the writers. How do you surprise an audience that has spent years trying to outsmart you? Screenwriter Aamil Keeyan Khan has said the team went through more than 100 versions while developing the final film, precisely because the audience now understands Vijay’s methods so well. Friends apparently even tried to persuade him to reveal the ending. That feels like a pretty good indication that Drishyam has achieved something unusual: the twist itself has effectively become the franchise star.

The latest film makes the challenge even more interesting because the Hindi series has now broken away from its source. The first two Drishyam films were adaptations of the hugely successful Malayalam originals starring Mohanlal, but The Conclusion follows its own storyline. Director Abhishek Pathak has been clear that this is his ending to the Hindi version, while the Malayalam series continues separately.

That means Drishyam is no longer simply a successful remake. It has become its own thing.

There is also something refreshing about the scale of its success. Hollywood and Indian cinema alike increasingly treat “franchise” as shorthand for bigger, louder and more expensive. Drishyam does almost the opposite. Its most important weapon is information. Who knows what? Who thinks they know what? What did somebody see six years ago? Why has Vijay suddenly said something that seems completely irrelevant?

Then, eventually, the pieces move into place.

Perhaps that is why audiences keep returning. Drishyam does not ask us merely to watch. It asks us to play along, scrutinise every conversation and convince ourselves that this time we have finally worked out what Vijay is doing.

We haven’t.

And despite the enormous box-office numbers, this really is supposed to be the end of the Hindi story. Pathak has ruled out Drishyam 4, while Devgn has also described The Conclusion as the definitive finale. Which is probably wise.

A great suspense story should always know when to reveal its final card