Tarun Dudeja, the director of Dhak Dhak (2023), starring Ratna Pathak Shah, Dia Mirza, Sanjana Sanghi, and Fatima Sana Shaikh, has confirmed that the film will also have a sequel. He tells us, “Its in a very nascent stage right now. The response that we got after the OTT release was really great, the audiences liked the characters. Why not take these characters on a new journey?” adding, “We are exploring ideas that kya nayi jagahen hosakti hain, kya naye issues and challenges hosakte hain and what is their journey. Having said that, nothing is absolutely confirmed yet.”
Dudeja also shares that the whole cast would come again on a new journey in the second part. “The cast would definitely be the same because people loved these characters. We are brainstorming ideas on how to make this into a good fresh story. We don’t want it to be like any other travel film, it should be different like the first part, that’s our goal. We are figuring out ki ab yeh characters kahan jaasakte hain and kya naye experiences hosakte hain, what could be the next stage after they rediscovered themselves in the first part. We are basically on stage one of scripting,” he says.
Dhak Dhak did not receive the best response when released theatrically but found its audience on OTT and was appreciated after its digital release. Would the sequel be consciously released digitally adhering to the experience. “We are hopefully trying to keep in a theatrical release only, but nothing has been decided yet. The first part released only in 150 screens and the marketing and promotions were limited. So, there is always greater responsibility with a sequel so we would want to make it bigger only, vaapis toh nahi jayenge,” Dudeja answers and continues, “Story achi hogi ki nahi and film kaisi banti hai uspar bhi depend karega where we release it. There are so many factors involved in this decision so it is very difficult to assume anything at this nascent stage.”