Ram Gopal Varma can’t stop raving about Aditya Dhar’s blockbuster spy franchise Dhurandhar, starring Ranveer Singh. But what’s more interesting to note now is the timing at which he drops a new tweet in praise of the phenomenon. Last Wednesday, he shared that he’s “rewatching” Dhurandhar, the day Geethu Mohandas’ Kannada action thriller Toxic: A Fairytale for Grownups, starring Yash, released in cinemas. Now, he has shared another post as Toxic is clearly struggling at box office. The two films were initially supposed to clash at the box office in March 2026 before Toxic release was postponed.

RGV on filmmaking lessons from Dhurandhar

As the internet speculated whether Varma’s tweet was a dig at him not endorsing the new release, the filmmaker reiterated his love for Dhurandhar the very next day. He reposted his tweet with the caption, “Rewatching #dhurandhar again and again,” confirming his bias. Now, in his latest post on X, Varma has spelled out what all filmmakers should learn from Dhurandhar.

“What every filmmaker should understand from #dhurandhar is that it is full of living, breathing characters who seem as real as you and me sitting and watching in the theatre, hence making it highly relatable,” wrote Varma on X on Monday morning. He claimed that Dhurandhar took the realism of his 1998 cult gangster thriller Satya to “another level”.

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“That is the only lesson worth stealing for all filmmakers, which the one most expensive films refuse to learn. Back in the day, even in a mega budget film like Titanic, James Cameron spent the money to make it look as real as possible, whereas we do the exact opposite here,” argued Varma. Cameron’s 1997 Hollywood romance epic, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, was made on a budget of $200 million, and went on to amass over $2.26 billion at the worldwide box office.

“Dhurandhar does not treat its hero as a walking poster who must be worshipped at all costs. He can be non-existent in the room. He can wait tables, listen instead of speaking, miscalculate, get dirty, get smaller in front of more smaller characters. The camera does not constantly elevate. It watches,” argued Varma. “You are not waiting for the next elevation shot. You are staying because the people on screen make you stay by becoming immersive The other films swagger. Have fog and slow motion that lasts longer than the characters’ inner lives,” he added.

Ranveer Singh in Dhurandhar.

Varma on Dhurandhar’s supporting cast

Varma even pointed out that the chief antagonist of Dhurandhar 1, which released this past December, is also not glorified. “Rehman Dakait (Akshaye Khanna) does not exist to look iconic in a still. He exists as a man with a specific laugh, a specific fear, a specific way of holding a gun or a stare,” wrote Varma.

He said that even other supporting actors don’t exits to “decorate the star”, whether it’s Rakesh Bedi’s Pakistan politician Jameel Jamali, Sanjay Dutt’s SP Chaudhary Aslam, Danish Pandor’s sidekick gangster Uzair Baloch, or even Gaurav Gera’s juice seller Mohmmed Aalam. “The women are not people. They are functions arranged around the same gravitational centre, so that the centre never has to become a living real person. You cannot tell what any of them is when he is not in the shot,” said Varma in what many construe as a dig at Toxic.

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Akshaye Khanna plays the crime kingpin Rehman Dakait in Dhurandhar.

RGV justifies Dhurandhar’s violence

Varma even went on to defend how violence has been used in Dhurandhar. “Violence in Dhurandhar has a before and an after. Somebody pays. Somebody changes. Somebody is left standing feeling smaller. In the other films, violence is just a spectacle minus context. Attitude is the plot. Style arrives first and then searches for a reason,” claimed the filmmaker.

“The camera does not observe, it advertises. Editing does not cut time, it manufactures fake intensity that was never in the writing. Characters do not act because they must. They act because the poster needed a dynamic still,” he added. Varma argued that while the characters in Satya and Dhurandhar seem lived-in, “the other films’ heroes feel assembled in a look test”.

“You leave knowing the hero’s hair, the hero’s walk, the hero’s catchphrase. You do not leave knowing a single thing about him as a human being,” wrote Varma.

“That is the difference every filmmaker should be forced to acknowledge and learn. Dhurandhar’s director trusts the audience enough to put living people on screen and let them feel as much as the protagonist. The hero feels as much pain as the villain. One is cinema that cuts into flesh. The others are cinema that pose for the camera,” concluded the filmmaker.

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RGV’s Dhurandhar praise a dig at Toxic?

Yet again, Varma’s latest post demonstrating the superiority of Dhurandhar comes on the first Monday after the release of Toxic. The long-awaited tentpole failed to meet the mounting trade expectations, as it couldn’t breach the Rs 300 crore mark at the worldwide box office during its five-day extended opening weekend. On the other hand, Dhurandhar 2: The Revenge managed to surpass that milestone within the same period earlier this year.

Dhurandhar 2 and Toxic have often been pitted against each other, especially given the two were scheduled to clash with each other on March 19. However, the Toxic release got postponed owing to the Gulf conflict, which hampered its chances at the worldwide box office, since the Middle East was expected to serve as a lucrative market for the KGF superstar. Dhurandhar became the highest grossing Indian franchise at the worldwide box office ever, amassing over Rs 3000 crore.

Co-produced by Yash’s Monster Mind Creations and K Venkat Narayana’s KVN Productions, Toxic is co-written by Yash and Mohandas. It boasts of a pan-India star cast, including Kiara Advani, Nayanthara, Huma Qureshi, Rukmini Vasanth, Tara Sutaria, and Akshay Oberoi among others. Made simultaneously in Kannada and English, it was also dubbed and released in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam.