A franchise at scale of 2,000 crores, a first win bet and a no upfront fee strategy. Dhurandhar it was a financial gamble that paid off.
New details emerging about the blockbuster reveal this Ranveer Singh and director Aditya Dhar deliberately departed from the usual high-fee model, choosing instead to tie their earnings to the film’s performance.
Get Updated Faster & FREE: Download the Gulf News app now – just click here.
Bet on the back
The strategy, as explained by Jyoti Deshpande of Jio Studios in an interview with ET Digital, was simple but risky: Lower the upfront payments and share the profits later.
Instead of shelling out huge flat fees, Ranveer Singh and Aditya Dhar reportedly accepted smaller upfront payments in exchange for participating in the end.
“In Dhurandhar, Ranveer came with a smaller fixed fee and a backlog deal, and therefore benefited from that deal. The same was true for Aditya, who also came with a smaller fixed fee and a second ending. He ended up making a significant upside with us. That’s how you spread both the risk and the reward,” she said.
A budget that continued to expand
Controlled production did not last long. Deshpande admitted that the film’s cost eventually doubled from its original estimate, reshaping it into a much larger project than planned.
However, while Dhurandhar’s Success remains such for the books, Ranveer is currently embroiled in controversy surrounding Farhan Akhtar’s Don 3. The controversy goes back five months, when Ranveer left Don 3a film he had been signed on to headline for several years. His departure in December 2025, according to him, was prompted by script changes.
The timing of the release added further attention to the fallout, which came just days after his film’s box office success.Dhurandhar. of production house behindDon 3Excel Entertainment, led by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani, later claimed that the actor’s departure had caused significant financial and scheduling disruptions during pre-production. The banner also claimed that Singh had repeatedly delayed the project due to scheduling conflicts before eventually leaving. Last week, the Federation of West Indies Cinema Employees (FWICE) issued a non-cooperation directive against the actor for his sudden exit from the film.
Ranveer has not personally responded to the controversy, however, his team released a statement, asserting that the actor would handle the dispute with ‘dignity’. “Throughout the recent developments surrounding Don 3, he has consciously chosen to remain silent, believing that professional discussions and personal equations are best handled with dignity, maturity and mutual respect,” reads part of the statement.
