Abhishek Pathak on Drishyam: The Conclusion: ‘Vijay Salgaonkar Has Evolved Into Darker Shades’

UNN: As Drishyam: The Conclusion gears up for its October 2 release, director Abhishek Pathak says the final chapter will take Ajay Devgn’s Vijay Salgaonkar into darker territory. Speaking exclusively to Variety, Pathak also stresses that the Hindi film is an entirely new story and has no connection to the Malayalam Drishyam 3 “It’s completely different. It’s a new story. It’s nothing to do with Malayalam. It’s a very different film altogether,” Pathak said in the interview. The filmmaker, who directed Drishyam 2, says the screenplay for the third instalment took around two years to develop. He began working on it after the 2022 release and spent time studying fan theories and looking for gaps in Vijay’s story. “That’s the main game of screenplay writing,” he says, referring to the challenge of staying ahead of an audience that has become increasingly invested in predicting Vijay’s next move.
The biggest evolution, however, is the character himself. Pathak says Vijay remains driven by the same motivation that has defined him from the beginning, but the choices he makes have pushed him into increasingly morally ambiguous territory. “That’s been the core of this film from part one itself, anything for family,” he says. But as the story progresses, Vijay has “evolved into more darker shades,” even as audiences continue to root for him despite his actions falling outside the law.Pathak also points to Devgn’s restrained performance as central to Vijay’s appeal. “He doesn’t speak much as a character in the film. It’s all about him just thinking,” he says, adding that Vijay has never resorted to violence across the three films. For Pathak, the challenge with The Conclusion was ultimately to give audiences a definitive ending while keeping Vijay one step ahead and darker than ever.