Jio Studios Head Jyoti Deshpande On ‘Dhurandhar’ Success

MUMBAI, INDIA – NOVEMBER 18: Ranveer Singh, Jyoti Deshpande and Aditya Dhar attend the trailer launch of film ‘Dhurandhar’ on November 18, 2025 in Mumbai, India. (Photo by Prodip Guha/Getty Images)

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When Jio Studios greenlit director Aditya Dhar’s spy thriller Dhurandhar, the studio believed it was taking a gamble. The film would feature a chaptered narrative structure more common on streaming platforms than in theaters, a massive 214 minutes of runtime, and tackle India-Pakistan relations — a tricky subject, to say less than the least.

More unusually for Indian cinema, the studio committed to shooting both parts of the planned two-film series simultaneously and announced the sequel’s release date in the first film’s post-credits scene.

“On paper, it was a risky film to greenlight,” says Jyoti Deshpande, President of Jio Studios, speaking from her Mumbai office as Dhurandhar continues its record-breaking theatrical run.

Her decision paid off.

In December 2025, Dhurandhar crossed a ₹1,000 crore gross at the domestic box office without releasing in the Gulf, without dubbed versions in other languages, and despite being banned in Pakistan and several Middle Eastern countries. By mid-January, it had become the highest-grossing Hindi film in India, eclipsing Pushpa 2: The Rule’s Hindi collections and claiming the second spot among the highest-grossing Hindi films of all time globally (fourth-highest grossing Indian film overall).

As of January 26, 2026, Dhurandhar has grossed ₹1,300 crore ($160 million) worldwide, according to Jio Studios.

Directed by Aditya Dhar (Uri: The Surgical Strike) and starring Ranveer Singh, Akshaye Khanna, Sanjay Dutt, R. Madhavan, and Arjun Rampal, the film follows a decade-long covert operation where an undercover RAW agent infiltrates Karachi’s criminal and political underworld. The plot loosely draws from and includes actual footage from real-life events including the 1999 IC-814 hijacking, the 2001 Parliament attack, and the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

The Studio Strategy

Deshpande has spent multiple decades in entertainment — starting in her 20s at Eros International, then heading content for Reliance Entertainment before joining Jio Studios. Her pitch is that the studio has prioritized content over casting decisions driven primarily by star power.

She points to recent releases that performed without traditional Bollywood marquee names. Stree 2 became 2024’s highest-grosser before Dhurandhar surpassed it. Laapataa Ladies earned critical acclaim and represented India at the Oscars.

“The box office opening has nothing to do with stars in it because it’s a two-day game,” Deshpande says. “Even if you’re able to collect for two days, if the film is not good, no matter what, it just tanks.”

Distribution Gaps

The absence of a Gulf release presents an interesting data point. The region typically represents significant box office revenue for Hindi films given the large Indian diaspora populations in those markets.

Deshpande draws comparisons to Dangal (2016), which grossed approximately ₹2,059 crore worldwide. Dangal‘s China release contributed over $193 million to its worldwide total. “Dangal has an extraordinary contribution from China in its worldwide numbers,” Deshpande says. “So excluding China numbers, we’ve smashed those numbers long ago.”

She anticipates potential future markets: “We’ll also probably have interest from China, interest from Japan. All these markets—what we’ve achieved now in the first round is pure diaspora.”

The film entered the ₹1,000 crore club merely three weeks after release, becoming the fourth Hindi film and ninth Indian film to achieve this milestone.

Trade and media reports citing IANS indicate the film recorded approximately 2 million illegal downloads in Pakistan within two weeks of release, where it remains banned along with all Indian films since 2019.

Cultural Impact

Beyond box office figures, Deshpande emphasizes that the film entered public discourse.

“The one ingredient you need to make a film successful is that it becomes part of pop culture. People talk about it at dinner tables and in their WhatsApp chats and when they meet. And they may have diverse opinions about it, but they should be talking about it.”

The cultural penetration was rapid, she tells me. “It almost became like, have you voted? Show me your finger,” she says. “After three days I don’t think we did any marketing. People made it their own.”

Responding To Criticism

Critics praised performances by Singh and Khanna, Dhar’s direction, Vikash Nowlakha’s cinematography and overall production value, while the runtime, pacing, and thematic approach received mixed responses.

The film also generated discussion around its portrayal of India-Pakistan relations, with perspectives ranging widely across the critical and audience spectrum.

Some raised questions about the film’s approach to its sensitive subject matter; several critics reported facing targeted harassment on social media for their assessments.

When I ask Deshpande about the critical reception, she is direct.

“I do not believe at all that this film was propaganda or it had some agenda to deliver,” she says. “It definitely was not against any religion. That was not the intention of the film or the intent. It cannot even be interpreted like that.”

“If we are rooting for our country, there’s nothing wrong with it,” Deshpande tells me. “We’re not rooting for our country at the cost of any religion or anything. We’re saying terrorism is bad. Terrorism is bad in any religion.”

Changing Economics

Deshpande also observes a broader shift in how films perform commercially. The middle ground in cinema is eroding, so to speak, in favour of either massive tentpole event films or direct to streaming content.

“The results are becoming more binary. It’s an all or nothing game. Either a film will do really well or it’s not going to do well at all, and that middle-of-the-road—it’s an average hit—those kind of things are disappearing.”

She attributes this partly to streaming platforms altering audience behavior. “OTT has taught the audiences systematically that in eight weeks it’s going to land on Netflix or Amazon or JioCinema. You don’t need to go to theaters. We have systematically taught audiences that. So the draw to the cinema needs to be that much more powerful and stories told with that much more conviction.”

Dhurandhar begins streaming on Netflix on January 30, 2026. Its sequel Dhurandhar 2 is scheduled for theatrical release March 19, 2026, in five languages — Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam — expanding significantly beyond the original’s Hindi-only strategy.

Jio Studios’ Trajectory

At this point, Deshpande has worked across multiple eras of entertainment distribution, from analog through VHS, DVD, satellite television, OTT, and now the early stages of AI integration in production.

For Jio Studios, founded approximately seven or eight years ago, she sees a long-term brand-building exercise. “You trust Disney to tell certain type of stories. You trust Pixar to tell certain type of stories. You trust Marvel to tell certain type of stories.” She cites A24 as an example of a young studio that built audience expectations. “That’s what we aspire [to be].”

The studio’s recent slate includes Stree 2, Laapataa Ladies, Article 370, and Shaitaan. “We’ve got more right than wrong and we want to continue on that trajectory and just win audience faith over a period of time. We want to tell responsible stories. We want to wow the consumers.”

Per the Reliance Industries annual report, Jio Studios accounted for 40% of the total Hindi film industry’s total India Net Box Office Collection in the 2024-25 financial year.

When I ask about career highlights, she returns to Stree (2018), which launched the horror-comedy franchise before it became a proven commercial genre in Hindi cinema.

“It was a small film, not many stars in the cast, and it was a horror comedy. There wasn’t even a Western precedent for that genre.” She recalls the risk: “I remember putting as much money into marketing as much as I put into making the film, and given it a wide release and it became a sleeper hit.”

The principle she draws from that experience: “Unless your conviction is there, if you go into it halfheartedly or trying to hedge your risk or not commit fully, you can never achieve a result like this. When you commit with conviction sometimes you’ll get a few wrong as well, but then you’ll get to learn and you’ll be able to create new milestones.”

The Verdict

As we wrap up our conversation, Deshpande describes Dhurandhar’s success in sweeping terms: “Films before Dhurandhar and films after Dhurandhar.”

Whether that assessment holds up will depend on several factors: how Dhurandhar 2 performs in March, whether the five-language strategy pays off commercially, and whether other studios successfully replicate the model of committing to multi-part franchises upfront. For now, Dhurandhar’s numbers speak for themselves.

Note: An earlier version of this story named Deshpande as the CEO of Jio Studios. She is the President.