{"id":456067,"date":"2026-02-08T08:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T08:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/456067\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T08:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T08:56:08","slug":"dhurandhar-2-marketer-defends-films-less-is-more-promotions-will-let-you-crave-for-the-main-course-exclusive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/456067\/","title":{"rendered":"Dhurandhar 2 marketer defends film’s ‘less is more’ promotions: ‘Will let you crave for the main course’ | Exclusive"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dhurandhar: The Revenge<\/a>, also referred to as Dhurandhar 2, is one of the most heavily anticipated Bollywood films of the last several years. The success of Part 1 has increased the buzz around the sequel\u2019s release. But fans were a little miffed as the teaser and first look were delayed. When the teaser was released this week, many complained about the lack of new visuals. However, the man behind the marketing strategy of the film defends their approach, saying \u2018less is more\u2019 works for a hyped film like Dhurandhar 2.<\/p>\n

\"VarunVarun Gupta with Dhurandhar director Aditya Dhar.<\/p>\n

In an exclusive interview with Hindustan Times, film marketer Varun Gupta discusses the success of Dhurandhar and the prep for Dhurandhar 2.<\/p>\n

\u2018Dhurandhar needed to be downplayed\u2019<\/p>\n

Varun\u2019s company, Max Marketing, has been behind the marketing campaigns for some of the biggest films in the last decade, including Baahubali, RRR<\/a>, Kalki 2898 AD, Jawan, and Animal. Talking about the past success, he says, \u201cIt helps us stay on our toes about what\u2019s next. It\u2019s very important that we need to keep bettering ourselves. I take it as a motivation. Touchwood, there are enough interesting projects lined up.\u201d<\/p>\n

As he discusses the promotional strategy of Aditya Dhar\u2019s Dhurandhar, Varun maintains that the plan was always to take it gently and to underplay the film. \u201cEven before the release of the film, we didn\u2019t go overboard with anything. In fact, we were underplaying. There were conversations about \u2018why are the promotions not going at the scale and level they are supposed to\u2019. There were a few people who tagged me (on social media), asking \u2018why aren\u2019t you doing what you are supposed to?\u2019. But every film cannot have the same strategy of getting my actor out there and going to colleges and various cities for interviews. Now that we have seen the film, you know it. What Q&A could Ranveer Singh do for the film?\u201d<\/p>\n

Varun says that the modern-day understanding of film marketing is largely driven by the perception that \u2018boots on the ground\u2019 is the default mode. But he does not agree with that thought. \u201cIf the actors are not seen on the ground, people feel marketing is not happening. Sometimes, it is required; sometimes it is not. There is no thumb rule that this is how it is supposed to happen. Like for RRR, we covered 6 cities in 3 days, because we knew it would take great effort to bring people back to theatres just after the pandemic,\u201d says Varun.<\/p>\n

However, he says that Dhurandhar required a different approach. He explains, \u201cOver here, we were clear that we wanted to keep it at a certain level of dignity and something non-gimmicky. The entire campaign was content-first. If you like what you see, you will watch the film. We never tried to oversell it through action scenes, an item song, and patriotism. It had everything, but we didn\u2019t sell any of it. We just stayed true to what we can expect from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Don’t kill the excitement by over-delivering\u2019<\/p>\n

The same questions of \u2018why are the promotions understated\u2019 have begun to crop up as Dhurandhar 2 has begun its promotions. But Varun does not read too much into it. \u201cSometimes the best strategy is not to come in the way of something that is very organic. It will be very foolish of us as a team to try and overdo something that is already doing so well,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen something is already anticipated, don\u2019t kill the excitement by over-delivering or satisfying the viewer. If you are hungry, I will only give you a starter and let you crave for the main course. If your stomach is filled and you are full till the neck, would you still buy the ticket on the first day? No!\u201d<\/p>\n

Dhurandhar, starring Ranveer Singh<\/a>, grossed \u20b91300 crore worldwide, becoming the second-highest-grossing Hindi film of all time. The Aditya Dhar directorial benefited from several viral moments, and all songs becoming chartbusters. Varun feels the goodwill from the first film will help Part 2, so the marketing should not go overboard. He says, \u201cNow, there is all the more reason we should not be going crazy. The first time we did it was a risk. Now it will obviously be a strategy. I am not saying we won\u2019t do anything. But we didn\u2019t try to be desperate then; we won\u2019t try to be desperate now. It\u2019s coming from the space of being confident of what you have, rather than being overconfident after the first one\u2019s success.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dhurandhar 2 also brings back R Madhavan, Sanjay Dutt, Arjun Rampal, and Akshaye Khanna in a cameo. The spy thriller releases in theatres on March 19.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dhurandhar: The Revenge, also referred to as Dhurandhar 2, is one of the most heavily anticipated Bollywood films…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[117611,201558,175401,88,213171,206,4950,213172],"class_list":{"0":"post-456067","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-aditya-dhar","9":"tag-bollywood-films","10":"tag-dhurandhar-2","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-marketing-strategy","13":"tag-movies","14":"tag-ranveer-singh","15":"tag-varun-gupta"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}