Drishyam 3 Director Wrote the Climax Before the Screenplay

For Drishyam: The Conclusion, director Abhishek Pathak didn’t start with the opening scene. He started with the final one. In an exclusive Pinkvilla interview, he explains that the team refused to start writing the screenplay until the ending was cracked.

The third and final instalment in Ajay Devgn’s thriller franchise closes Vijay Salgaonkar’s story. After Drishyam 2, Pathak felt a third film could not repeat the formula. Fans now remember little details, clues and dialogue, so the Hindi version needed a genuinely new path.

Why the Hindi film took its own route

Pathak says the Malayalam films have created a wonderful legacy and the team always respected that. But the goal for the Hindi story was to take it forward in a way that felt organic to the characters and the world of the first two films.

“We actually started with the ending,” he says. “We needed to know where the story was going before we could figure out how to take the audience there.” That meant writing backwards, not just chasing a twist for the sake of being different.

How the climax shaped everything

Pathak calls the climax the most important part of the film. “If you don’t get the climax right, the entire build-up can fall apart,” he says. The team kept returning to one test while writing:

• Crack the ending before drafting the screenplay.
• Give every small detail a clear purpose.
• Ask whether viewers could guess the next reveal, and rework if they could.
• Keep refining information and timing through the edit.

He adds that audiences already try to solve the mystery before it is shown on screen. So suspense becomes a matter of controlling what the viewer knows and when they learn it. The payoff lands when people look back and see the clues were there all along, but they did not put them together.

What comes after the conclusion

Pathak credits Ajay Devgn’s ability to communicate a lot without saying too much, and says they share a natural working comfort. Another collaboration is possible, but he does not want to treat it as a continuation of Drishyam’s success. The starting point has to be a story that excites both of them.

For audiences, that points to a clean finish for a beloved character. For creators, the takeaway is simple: in a mystery, the destination should decide the route.

Source: PINKVILLA

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#Abhishek Pathak#Ajay Devgn#Bollywood thriller#Drishyam 3#Drishyam The Conclusion#Hindi movies#Vijay Salgaonkar