A day after dismissing Shabana Azmi’s theory about the failure of their recent Partition drama Batwara 1947, Rajkumar Santoshi plans to reunite with Sunny Deol again and again. The filmmaker confirmed that he’s working on at least a couple of films with his longtime collaborator, including a follow-up to their last hit, 1996 action thriller Ghatak.

Santoshi, Sunny to reunite

“Sunny and I are working on a few stories, and soon we will make a formal announcement about it,” Santoshi told PTI recently. One of those stories is one where Sunny plays a Sardar based out of the US, also an action thriller. The other one is in fairly familiar territory — a follow-up to Ghatak, called Ghatak Ghus Ke Marega.

The “ghus ke marega” narrative also made its way into Batwara 1947, when Sunny’s son Karan Deol, who also plays his son in the film, warns advancing Pakistani extremists that they don’t know his father too well. “Seedha ghar mein ghus ke maarenge,” claimed Karan in the film, before Sunny unleashed himself on all of them.

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Not Ghatak 2

However, Santoshi clarified that Ghatak Ghus Ke Marega is not a sequel to his and Sunny’s 1996 hit. “The fans of Sunny will be happy as this new film has action, powerful dialogues and emotion,” said the filmmaker. ” It is not a sequel. But it is the same character, like the character is from Varanasi,” he added.

Since Santoshi claims he doesn’t believe in doing sequels, he’s turned down the offer to direct Jaat 2, a sequel to Sunny’s action thriller from last year. So, Gopichand Malineni will return to helm Jaat 2. Santoshi’s resistance towards sequel is also one of the reasons why he didn’t take on Ghayal Returns (2016), the ambitious follow-up to his and Sunny’s first collaboration, thus making Sunny return to direction 17 years after his 1999 directorial debut Dillagi.

His stand on sequels is also why Santoshi said he’s not continuing the story of his 1994 cult comedy Andaz Apna Apna. The film, starring Salman Khan and Aamir Khan, didn’t work at the box office back then, but has acquired a cult status over the years. Santoshi is making a spiritual sequel to that film, titled Ada Apni Apni, but will soon formally announce if the two Khans will return for the new film. “It is a different story, but the genre, comedy and adventure are the same. We didn’t want to do a sequel as the story concludes with Andaz Apna Apna,” argued the filmmaker.

Aamir Khan and Salman Khan in a still from Andaz Apna Apna.

Batwara 1947 failure

Santoshi’s plans to reunite with Sunny come on the heels of the failure of Batwara 1947. The film revolved around a Muslim family, headed by Sunny, who are forced to move to Lahore, Pakistan during Partition. However, once they find the original owner of their new haveli, an elderly Hindu woman (Shabana Azmi) still living there, they go out of their way to protect her from Pakistani extremists.

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Releasing alongside Nitin Kakkar’s hit action thriller Awarapan 2, starring Emraan Hashmi, Batwara 1947 could not even touch the Rs 40 crore mark at the domestic box office. Shocked by this wipeout, Azmi attributed it to the audience not accepting Sunny as a Muslim character. “Why can’t the audience accept Sunny Deol as a Muslim?,” she told Zoom. “What are we supposed to understand from this? Is such an environment being created here where these kinds of divisions are deliberately being encouraged? I don’t understand,” added the veteran actor.

However, Santoshi dismissed that theory, pointing out that even at the peak of his career, Amitabh Bachchan had essayed several Muslim characters in hit films, including Manmohan Desai’s 1983 action comedy Coolie. “Are we at a point where we cannot accept a hero from the other community? We are sensible, good people, educated people. How are they saying there’s a big mistake in the film?,” the filmmaker told Variety India.

Sunny and Santoshi’s streak ends

Sunny and Santoshi, who’ve had a hattrick at the box office before Batwara 1947, reunited after a gap of 30 years. Their first collaboration was the action thriller Ghayal back in 1990. They reunited for courtroom drama Damini in 1993, and then for Ghatak three years later. The two had been planning to do more films since the early 2000s, even on historical figures like Chandragupta Maurya and Ashoka.

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“Nothing was materializing because the producers didn’t think we were saleable,” Sunny told the media earlier this month. “We were sitting on this story (Batwara 1947) since 2010, but we were fortunate that Aamir (Khan) wanted to do this film since he had heard it much earlier,” added the actor. Aamir Khan greenlit the film after Sunny emerged as a bankable leading actor again post the box-office success of Anil Sharma’s 2023 action drama Gadar 2.