Shridhar Raghavan on YRF’s spy universe: Idea is to have fun with the genre

New Delhi, Feb 10 (PTI) “Pathaan” marks the beginning of a new phase for Yash Raj Films and its writer Shridhar Raghavan says their hope is to create a fun spy universe with characters old and new.

Raghavan is the mentor writer for the proposed spy universe, which was launched with the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer. “Pathaan”, directed by Siddharth Anand, is having a golden run at the box office with Rs 888 crore gross worldwide since its release on January 25.

The writer credited YRF head Aditya Chopra for conceptualising the universe that will see characters from Salman Khan-starrer “Tiger” franchise, Hrithik Roshan-led “War” and “Pathaan” crossover.

Salman already had a much-hyped cameo in “Pathaan”, whereas Roshan’s Kabir found a mention.

“Adi sir asked me to work on it and help design it. Our intention is to take the characters that we have already created and have further adventures with them. In these adventures, there will be a bit of crossover. Every now and then you will find these crossovers happening,” Raghavan told PTI in a virtual interview.

“There will also be newer characters being introduced. Characters who we have seen in other films of ours, who you may think, ‘ok but something happened to this character’, but their story is not over yet. There are different tracks and plans,” he added.

Raghavan has written the screenplay for the high octane spy thriller on a story by Anand. Abbas Tyrewala has penned the dialogues.

He has also finished working on “Tiger 3” and will mentor other stories related to the spy universe.

“We will have a lot more stories. I am involved in some of them as writer, and in some I am helping Adi sir design the thing. In some, there might be another writer but I would be brainstorming and mentoring with them. The idea is to have a lot of fun within the spy genre and try and do as much as we can,” Raghavan said.

Asked whether there was any pressure to deliver a success with “Pathaan” given the fact that it marked Shah Rukh Khan’s return to a leading role after a gap of four years, Raghavan said Chopra sheltered them from expectations.

“Honestly, none of this pressure was there on the writers or on the writing team, at least. Everybody knows Mr Aditya Chopra as a producer and director but what many people forget is that he is also a writer. So there is a lot of what he brings to us is that ‘you relax’,” Raghavan said.

While he was not involved with “Ek Tha Tiger” and “Tiger Zinda Hai”, Raghavan said he became a part of the journey with “War”.

“I came to this spy universe only with ‘War’…. He (Chopra) knew exactly where he was going. I took the ride in the middle of the journey. I’ve been in ‘Pathaan’. I’ve done ‘Tiger’ three. And now we’re planning ahead. So when we talk about the spy universe, it’s a design he’s come up with and I’m helping him expand it.”

At the time of “War”, the screenwriter said, he had no idea that there was a plan for an extended movie universe.

“I gradually realized that ‘Oh, there is a systematic plan to this’. There is the Tiger character, there is Kabir (Hrithik Roshan’s character in War), and now this. One day we were chatting up and he (Chopra) said, ‘ok, I want to go like this’. He had lots of ideas and said, ‘it’d be great fun to try and execute this’,” Raghavan added.

Describing action as “truly collaborative”, the screenwriter said everyone in the team worked towards crafting a fun film with “Pathaan”, also starring Deepika Padukone and John Abraham.

“I was joking with somebody recently that I’ll get up in the morning and think about writing ‘three ways to escape from prison’. It’s like a game you play with yourself. All of us were involved. I wrote versions, Sid added a lot. The actor has ideas of what all would be interesting to do. Some of it I wrote, I can’t remotely take credit for most.”

Abraham’s negative turn as Jim has been praised by the audience and Raghavan said creating a strong villain was intentional. The writing team, he said, spent a lot of time in crafting the character.

“See, every villain believes he is the hero of his own story. If you sit with them, they will have a point of view. Otherwise, it would be stupid. We wanted him to be such a character that if you sit with Jim for 10 minutes, you will think, ‘Arre yaar, ye sahi bol raha hai'( he is right) . You will start empathizing with him,” the screenwriter said.

“I was really happy when people said we love the villain. That was a victory for us.”