New Delhi, June 18, 2026: The massive box office success of director Aditya Dhar’s spy-thriller franchise, Dhurandhar, has triggered a wave of wild internet conspiracy theories. Ever since the first installment took theaters by storm on December 5, 2025, closely followed by its blockbuster sequel, Dhurandhar: The Revenge, on March 19, 2026, rumors have swirled that the script wasn’t written in a typical Bollywood writers’ room. Instead, because of the film’s intense geopolitical themes, a persistent theory claimed that the screenplay originated directly from India’s Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
Veteran actor Rakesh Bedi, who won immense critical and popular praise for his standout performance as the undercover agent Jameel Jamali, has finally stepped forward to address these rumors. Speaking at the Amrit Ratna 2026 summit in New Delhi, the 71-year-old actor used a hilarious yet undeniable piece of logic to firmly shut down the political conspiracy theories.
The Dialogue That Debunked a Conspiracy
To prove that the government had absolutely nothing to do with writing the high-octane spy franchise, Bedi highlighted the film’s sudden, viral comedic moments. He specifically pointed to one of his character’s most famous and eccentric lines, which went completely viral on social media. Reciting the dialogue, “Your buttocks are very white”—a bizarrely funny comment made in reference to a flock of ducks during a tense sequence—Bedi sent the audience into fits of laughter before delivering his ultimate point.
With that single observation, Bedi effectively dismantled the political rumors. He noted that the bureaucratic, formal setting of the PMO is the absolute last place anyone would find the kind of eccentric, raw humor that made Dhurandhar an international, multi-crore sensation.
How Comedy Saved a Highly Intense Script
Beyond dismissing the rumors, Bedi opened up about the creative journey behind the franchise. He revealed that the viral comedic relief almost didn’t make it into the movies. When director Aditya Dhar initially handed him the bound script, the story was relentlessly grim, dark, and heavy.
Bedi, an alumnus of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) with decades of experience in legendary comedy projects like Chashme Buddoor and Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi, felt the narrative was too suffocatingly tense. He realized that the audience would need a few “pockets of breathing room” to survive the breakneck pacing.
When Bedi first approached Dhar about sprinkling humor into a gritty espionage story, the filmmaker was highly hesitant. Dhar’s cinematic style—widely recognized from his prior military drama Uri—leaned toward meticulous, dead-serious realism. However, Bedi persisted. As filming began, the director gave Bedi the freedom to experiment. The results spoke for themselves; the dark thriller was suddenly infused with unexpected, organic comedy that elevated it from a standard action movie into a dynamic cinematic experience.
Bedi even shared a behind-the-scenes secret regarding the famous “duck scene.” During filming alongside co-stars Sanjay Dutt and Arjun Rampal, there wasn’t a lake or a single bird on the set. Bedi simply ad-libbed the eccentric line about the ducks out of nowhere, leaving the cast and crew roaring with laughter. Intrigued by the sheer randomness of the joke, Aditya Dhar loved it so much that he ordered the visual elements of the lake and the ducks to be added entirely through digital visual effects (VFX) during post-production.
The Meteoric Rise of the ‘Dhurandhar’ Universe
The massive scale of public interest in Dhurandhar explains why such wild rumors gained traction in the first place. The two-part film series features an absolute powerhouse ensemble cast, including Ranveer Singh, Akshaye Khanna, Sanjay Dutt, Arjun Rampal, R. Madhavan, and Sara Arjun.
The story follows a deeply embedded Indian intelligence agent named Jaskirat Singh Rangi (played by Ranveer Singh), who operates under the alias Hamza Ali Mazari. He is sent on a high-stakes, covert counter-terrorism operation into Pakistan’s volatile Lyari region to dismantle a dangerous terror network threatening India. To achieve his mission, he undergoes a massive transformation: infiltrating a Baloch gang, marrying the daughter of a local politician, and slowly embedding himself into the very fabric of the community.
Bedi’s character, Jameel Jamali, serves as one of the franchise’s biggest emotional anchors and plot twists. Posing as a senior Pakistani politician, Jamali’s true identity as a deeply undercover Indian intelligence operative is fiercely guarded until a stunning climax completely catches audiences off guard. Bedi revealed that Dhar had actually locked him in for this pivotal role nearly three years before the actual screenplay was even finished, purely based on a baseline concept.
The Power of Modern Stardom and Social Media
Reflecting on his sudden surge in global popularity, Bedi credited the explosive nature of modern digital algorithms. While he experienced massive stardom during the golden era of Indian television and cinema, he noted that the sheer scale of success in 2026 is entirely unprecedented.
In the past, movie promotions were limited to physical posters pasted on roadside brick walls. Today, a single viral clip on Instagram or TikTok reaches hundreds of millions of viewers across the globe within seconds. This digital word-of-mouth catapulted Dhurandhar to historic commercial heights, with the first installment grossing over ₹1,350 crore and the sequel smashing records at over ₹1,790 crore worldwide.
While the movies did face minor political critiques from certain circles for allegedly favoring the current administration’s narrative, Bedi’s revelations put an end to the extreme theories of government-level scriptwriting. Dhurandhar is fundamentally a product of bold commercial filmmaking, collaborative acting, and spontaneous creative impulses—proving that sometimes, a great piece of cinema is just a great piece of cinema. Both films are currently available for global audiences on major streaming platforms.