Much can be argued about Aditya Dhar’s intentions, his disturbing politics, as well as whether he possesses the almost mythical “cunning” that the Internet has so loudly attributed to him for months. However, one thing has remained virtually unchallenged: his instinctive mastery of marketing grammar. Bottom line: Dhar understands the art of trailer cutting. He knows how to compress a world into minutes, how to introduce characters without exhausting them, how to meet the brutal demands of marketing without letting the seams show. Dhurandhar’s four-minute trailer was proof enough. In fact, it was lenient but safe, which helped ensure the film’s explosive opening day, long before the frenzy around the film engulfed the nation. It was only natural, then, that a similar tremor of excitement followed Monday night’s announcement: the Dhurandhar 2 teaser would arrive on Tuesday afternoon.
Expectations, once again, were set. This time, however, the spell seems weaker. Magic doubts. Fractures begin to emerge where trust once felt perfect. Before tackling the trailer itself, it’s worth pausing at the sequel’s poster, released this morning. To be honest, it reveals little beyond its own predictability. The composition is confident, the images familiar, the promise unadventurous.
Dhurandhar 2 first look poster: Experimentation has left the chat
I’m not sure if many remember Singh’s first poster, released the same day the original trailer was released. It was fun but precise. Singh appeared with long hair and a large beard, wrapped in a Pathani kurta, gun in hand, caught in the middle of what looked like a panning shot, slightly out of focus. The genius lies in how the image resists the usual grammar of star posters, where actors are elevated to an almost mythical stillness. Here, Singh was already dissolving into the frame, moving away even as he was introduced.
First look poster of Dhurandhar, where Singh was markedly out of focus.
So read | Dhurandhar pushes an intolerant view, inciting the audience to accept it as entertainment.
In retrospect, the sign functioned as an omen. Within Dhar’s gangster saga, Hamza (Singh) gradually gave up narrative space, allowing the ensemble, Akshaye Khanna, Sanjay Dutt and Rakesh Bedi, to take on greater weight. The supposed protagonist often felt like a spectator of his own story, as if the figure were present but peripheral, as if power was withheld, not displayed. In fact, that’s what Rajeev Chudasama, founder of MA+TH Entertainment, whose agency designed the first poster, He previously said in an exclusive conversation with SCREEN: “We’ve worked a lot with Ranveer; he was totally on board with it. And he knew they were striking images that would work. Look, no one wants to play it safe. The basic idea was to be experimental, because we didn’t want just another attractive image for the poster; we wanted to break through the clutter and stand out.”
That impulse, however, seems absent in the first poster of Dhurandhar 2. The experimental spirit has left the frame. Singh is now frozen with rage, presented as a “wrath of God,” bathed entirely in red, a shorthand so familiar it barely begs to be decoded. Red as revenge, red as violence, red as warning. He stands tall in the rain, which, inevitably, is also… red. The image effectively announces fury, but says little else. Whereas the previous poster invited interpretation, this one insists on statement and, in doing so, settles for the most predictable note it can muster.
Aditya Dhar plays it safe
Coming to the trailer, much awaited by fans, it turns out that Dhar and his team released the same footage that appeared in the post-credits sequence of Part One. Repackaged as a teaser, the move has proven a clear disappointment. Currently, social media is awash with frustration. One plausible reason could be purely logistical: an attempt to formally signal that the film remains on track for an Eid 2026 release, especially amid persistent rumors of a possible move to avoid its announced clash with Yash’s Toxic on March 19.
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Watch the trailers of Dhurandhar: The Revenge here:
Another explanation may lie in moderation rather than strategy. With several leaked clips from the shooting of Dhurandhar 2 doing the rounds online in the last few days, the makers seem to be racing against time to complete the production. In that sense, the trailer functions less as a reveal and more as a placeholder: reiterating what’s already been shown, offering reassurance without revealing, keeping the film in conversation without revealing anything new. If so, the choice is revealing. This suggests that a filmmaker once famous for his confident sense of promotion may now be erring on the side of caution. It suggests that Dhar, who has understood the art of anticipation, appears, at least for the moment, to be playing it safe.