Ranveer Bet Paid Off as Dhurandhar Chose Performers Over Stars

Jyoti Deshpande just confirmed the quiet calculation behind Ranveer Singh’s casting in Aditya Dhar’s Dhurandhar. The co-producer told Outlook Business the team wanted performers, not so-called stars, because the film’s scale already left little margin for high fees. That choice, paired with backend deals, helped turn a risky two-part spy thriller into a franchise that cleared more than Rs 3,200 crore worldwide.

The first film alone posted an India nett of Rs 895.96 crore and roughly Rs 1,350 crore worldwide. Its sequel pushed the combined total past the three-thousand mark and rewrote Hindi-film records.

Performers Over So-Called Stars

Deshpande, President of Jio Studios, laid out the logic without varnish. “We knew the film was expensive. Every penny had to land up on screen. There were no safe things we could do because it was already an expensive film to shoot. Now, if we added expensive actors as well, it was going to render the film unviable on day one. So we wanted performers rather than the so-called stars.”

I find him an absolutely outstanding actor who gives it his all. He transforms into a character.

She said she had worked with Ranveer on Ram-Leela and Bajirao Mastani when he was still rising. Those remain among her favourites. “I love that about him, the fact that he is not Ranveer Singh in that film. When he has to become Bajirao, he becomes Bajirao. When he has to become Khilji, he becomes Khilji. When he has to become the Gully Boy, he becomes the ‘Gully Boy’. So he transforms; he doesn’t play Ranveer Singh.”

That transformation mattered for a dual role that demanded two distinct identities across years of undercover work.

The Budget That Ruled Out Big Fees

Combined production cost for both parts landed between Rs 250 crore and Rs 255 crore. Deshpande has said the final spend nearly doubled the original plan once the story expanded. In an earlier conversation she called it a risky film to greenlight on paper: chaptered structure, 200-plus-minute runtimes, sensitive India-Pakistan material, and no Gulf release.

The first part still crossed Rs 1,000 crore domestic gross without those markets or dubbed versions. Every extra crore spent on a marquee fee would have come straight off the screen. The producers chose the opposite path.

Ranveer Took a Smaller Cheque

The casting decision came with a matching financial structure. Deshpande told ET Digital that both the lead and the director accepted lower upfront money in exchange for backend participation.

• Ranveer arrived with a smaller fixed fee plus profit share.
• Aditya Dhar took the same model.
• Both walked away with significant upside once the films worked.
• Risk and reward sat with the people who actually made the movie.

She summarised it cleanly: “In Dhurandhar, Ranveer came with a smaller fixed fee and a backend deal, and therefore benefited from that arrangement. The same was true for Aditya… That’s how you distribute both the risk and the reward.”

The original plan was one film. After the first schedule the footage convinced them the story had legs for two parts. They committed more capital before the outcome was certain. “In the end, all of us went laughing to the bank.”

Dual Roles That Erased the Star

Ranveer played Hamza Ali Mazari and Jaskirat Singh Rangi. The performance required him to disappear into a Sikh recruit who becomes a long-term RAW asset inside Karachi’s underworld. Critics and audiences singled out the commitment. Deshpande noted he did nothing else for the duration of the shoot.

That total immersion matched the film’s own all-in posture. Cinematography, sound, editing and the rest of the crew operated under the same pressure: the money had to show. The result was a pair of long, dense thrillers that held audiences for weeks.

Franchise Numbers That Closed the Bet

The commercial close proved the model.

Part 2 alone crossed the thousand-crore worldwide mark inside its first week and later added further records in North America. Early tracking of Dhurandhar 2 crossing Rs 1,000 crore already signalled the scale. Footfalls topped four crore for the sequel. The absence of GCC and China releases makes the totals sharper still.

Everyone Had Skin in the Game

Deshpande kept returning to shared purpose. “Everyone was involved. Aditya Dhar, to begin with. And Ranveer Singh, the actor, who went all in and did nothing else for the duration of the film. Every technician who was part of that film… everyone was all in.”

She described the feeling as almost existential: if they did not finish this film they were not alive. The chaptered format, the real-event echoes (IC-814, Parliament attack, 26/11), and the long immersion style all demanded conviction over hedge.

Stats that stuck:

• Rs 250-255 crore combined budget for both parts
• Nearly doubled original spend once the story split
• Zero Gulf release yet still record Hindi domestic numbers
• Backend alignment for star and director

Crowd conversation on X after earlier fee revelations focused on exactly this point: lower fixed costs freed money for production value while profit share kept the key talent locked in for the long shoot. The same voices noted that “not playing Ranveer” let the dual identity land with audiences who then drove the word-of-mouth.

What the Model Leaves for the Next Wave

Deshpande has argued the middle has vanished. Films either become events or they vanish into the streaming window. OTT has trained viewers that most titles will arrive at home in eight weeks. Theatres now require stories told with enough conviction to pull people out.

Dhurandhar tested that thesis with a long, dense, A-certified spy saga shot back-to-back and released months apart. The bet on a performer who transforms, paired with financial skin for the people who make the frames, produced one of the decade’s clearest commercial and cultural hits.

Ranveer next appears in Pralay opposite Kalyani Priyadarshan. The industry will watch whether the same performer-first, backend-shared template travels. For now the numbers stand: a film that looked unviable on day one if loaded with star fees became the franchise that rewrote the board.