Drishyam 3 director on cracking the one plot twist fans 'couldn't guess'

Tabu in the film. Pics/By Special Arrangement

Almost every character in Drishyam's universe operates in the grey, from Ajay Devgn's Vijay Salgaonkar to Tabu's Meera Deshmukh. That's something director Abhishek Pathak knew as he sat down to write Drishyam: The Conclusion. His objective was to ensure that Tabu's character - a mother seeking answers to her son's murder for years - did not tilt towards all-black in the final chapter of the suspense thriller.

According to him, her character's journey of closure and revenge is the spine of Drishyam: The Conclusion. "She tried to go by the book in part one and even two, but now she wants to go a different way. [Going by the book] is not how she believes justice will be served. It will be interesting to watch how the Deshmukhs will change their way in this film," said Pathak.

(L-R) Ajay Devgn and Abhishek Pathak

Writing the third instalment had another challenge - the need to be a step ahead of the audience that has spent years discussing how Devgn's character, who has covered up a murder, will elude the police this time. While the team read fan theories posted on social media, they consciously chose not to use them. The director shared, "We had to be smarter than anyone in the theatre. It's a film where people are making their own theories. We were trying to [steer] away from that because we wanted to do something that people are not expecting. We had to think what could be the one thing that people couldn't guess or had overlooked. It took time to crack that."