Hera Phera 3, Tiger 3, Drishyam 3: Bollywood’s tryst with popular franchises

Some movies leave an impact so strong that audiences are often left asking for more. Here’s a list of such Hindi film franchises from across genres whose third instalments are much talked about across cinegoers.

Fukrey 3: The Fukrey franchise, featuring actors Pulkit Samrat, Varun Sharma, Manjot Singh and Ali Fazal, revolves around four friends who look for easy ways to make money. It also stars Richa Chadha as Bholi Punjaban. The first two parts were superhit and fans could not keep calm when Director Mrigdeep Singh Lamba in June announced the wrap of the third film franchise. Talking about the movie, Richa had earlier said, “The film is going to be bigger and better. I am really excited.” She added that the movie’s ‘premise was ridiculous’, which would be rendered believable by the cast.

Tiger 3: Directed by Maneesh Sharma, third part of Salman Khan starrer will also see actors like Katrina Kaif reprising her role and Emraan Hashmi, Ridhi Dogra as the new additions. The first two instalments saw Khan and Kaif in the role of undercover agents from India and Pakistan respectively, who fall in love and get married. No news about the plot is out yet but the film is expected to release Diwali 2023. While announcing the release date, Salman also shared the first poster of the film giving an intense glimpse of himself. In the closeup photo, only an eye of the actor and his wrist were visible as the rest of his face was buried behind a scarf.

Aashiqui 3: Films from the Aashiqui franchise have been one of the most awaited projects, and this time adding to the excitement is heartthrob Kartik Aaryan coming on board as the lead actor. Aaryan made the announcement on his Instagram account by sharing the motion poster of the romantic drama. In his recent Variety interview about Aashiqui 3, Kartik had said, “The timeless classic Aashiqui is something I grew up watching and working on Aashiqui 3 is like a dream come true.” As for the female lead, there have been speculations that Jennifer Winget will be cast opposite Aaryan, but nothing has been finalised yet.

Heria Pheri 3 has been in the news for some reason or the other. First it was the speculations about who all are part of the film, including the reports that Kartik Aaryan was roped in for an important role. Putting an end to all the speculations, Suniel Shetty finally revealed that in the film, he along with Akshay Kumar, and Paresh Rawal will be seen reprising their popular characters, Shyam, Raju and Baburao, respectively. The film soon landed in another controversy when fans showed their disappointment and disapproval over the decision of signing Farhad Samji as the film’s director, as they trended the hashtag ‘Remove Farhad Samji from Hera Pheri’ on Twitter. The director, later in an interview reacted to it and said “everybody tries their best and if anyone has any problem, then they will try to rectify it by making better movies and by writing better punches.”

Welcome 3: After the success of Welcome and Welcome Back, Firoz Nadiadwala is busy planning the third instalment of the series and will be called Welcome to the Jungle, as revealed by the maker. It’ll retain the humour, wit and entertainment that is associated with this franchise and moreover, it’ll be based against a military action backdrop. The action will be huge in this film. It’ll be made on a scale which has never been seen before in Indian cinema in terms of production value, grandeur etc,” Nadiadwala had said in an interview earlier. The star cast has not been finalized yet, but it is expected to have all the big actors. The film is set to go on floors in 2023, as per latest reports.

KGF 3: Second instalment of the film franchise KGF: Chapter 2 saw Rocky Bhai drowning in the ocean after facing off against the Indian Navy. Just when the audiences assumed him to be dead, director Prashanth Neel teases the return of the character in the third part of the film series. Though there is no update on when the film will go on floor, but during a media interaction, Yash said that he is not planning to get involved in the project anytime soon as he wants to play different characters.

Force 3: John Abraham in the role of a no-nonsense cop ACP Yashvardhan Singh won the hearts. After the success of first part, the team came up with Force 2 , almost five years later, which turned out to be equally successful. And now, as per the recent report, Force 3 is in the making too. The report close to the film stated, “John Abraham has acquired all the rights to the Force franchise from Vipul Shah and is all gearing up to take things to the next level on the action front. The actor is on a mission to lock a story that does justice to the kind of action spectacle he wishes to create in the universe of Force. Once the script is locked, his team will proceed to other aspect of pre-production.”

Drishyam 3: Drishyam 1 and 2, starring Mohanlal in the original version and Ajay Devgn in its Hindi adaptation were widely accepted by audience as well as the critics. Seeing the success of the two films, South Indian producer Antony Perumbavoor officially confirmed actor Mohanlal’s ‘Drishyam 3’ at a recent award function. The third part is in the works and scripting is underway already for the film, as per reports. Also, the Bholaa star apparently feels that with the remakes of Drishyam 1 and 2 proving to be big hits, it is better if the third instalment was made at the same time as the Malayalam one. So, the films – Hindi as well as Malayalam may see a release at the same time.

Brahmastra 3: After the successful run of Brahmastra in theatres, director Ayan Mukherji, announced not just one but two more films in the franchise. ‘Brahmastra Part 2: Dev’ and ‘Brahmastra Part 3’ are scheduled to release in 2026 and 2027 respectively’, as shared by the filmmaker on his Instagram handle. He also informed that the econd and third instalment will be made together, thereby allowing them to also release closer together. The latest reports however suggest that the new films will be produced under a different production house after Karan Johar and Ayan Mukerji reportedly had a tiff over the upcoming films.

Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3: Kartik Aaryan will revive his role of Rooh Baba is the third instalment of Bhool Bhulaiyaa. Taking to his social media handles, the actor dropped an announcement post and also shared a small video featuring his popular dialogue from Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2. The film will released on the occasion of Diwali 2024. The first film of the franchise featured Akshay Kumar and Vidya Balan in the lead, while Kiara Advani with Aaryan replaced the two legends in the second part, which the audience were not really happy about initially. But the film turned out to a blockbuster, finally pulling out people from their homes after Covid.