4 min readMumbaiUpdated: Mar 23, 2026 06:06 PM IST
Ram Gopal Varma has been one of the most ardent admirers of Aditya Dhar’s blockbuster spy thriller franchise Dhurandhar ever since the first part dropped in cinemas this past December. His praise has only grown manifold after the release of the sequel, Dhurandhar The Revenge, in cinemas earlier this month.
So much so that Varma took to his X handle on Monday and wrote, “Post experiencing the impact of #Dhurandhar2 , in the same breath of letting go of the past and inventing a new future , if SATYA, COMPANY and SARKAR were my ode to my old guru COPPOLA, my next film SYNDICATE , will be my ode to my new GURU @AdityaDharFilms.”
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Ram Gopal Varma’s seminal crime dramas — Satya (1998), starring Manoj Bajpayee, Company (2002), starring Ajay Devgn, and Sarkar (2005), starring Amitabh Bachchan — were a tribute to legendary Hollywood filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, best known as the architect of the Godfather franchise. Now, Varma claims his upcoming crime drama, titled Syndicate, will be his ode to Dhar.
Post experiencing the impact of #Dhurandhar2 , in the same breath of letting go of the past and inventing a new future , if SATYA, COMPANY and SARKAR were my ode to my old guru COPPOLA, my next film SYNDICATE , will be my ode to my new GURU @AdityaDharFilms.”
— Ram Gopal Varma (@RGVzoomin) March 23, 2026
Last year, after watching Satya in cinemas upon its re-release, Ram Gopal Varma had announced his upcoming film, Syndicate. He’d confessed that he cried over the fact that he felt he wouldn’t ever be able to recreate the effect of Satya with any of his films again. “In continuation to my confession note on Satya film, I decided to make the biggest film ever. The film is called Syndicate. It’s about a terrifying organisation which threatens the very existence of India,” Varma wrote on X.
He also claimed that Syndicate will be a “futuristic” film. “It is not set in the far away future, but what can happen even tomorrow or next week. For example, the entire world woke up to Al Qaeda on September 11th 2001, but did not know its existence even on September 10th. Syndicate begins with a statement, ‘Only man can be the most terrifying animal,’” RGV added.
Meanwhile, Ram Gopal Varma heaped more praise on Aditya Dhar and Dhurandhar 2 in an interview with Faridoon Shahryar. Clarifying his tweet, where he compared Dhar to seasoned Hollywood filmmakers Steven Spielberg and Christopher Nolan, Varma csaid, “Why I mentioned Steven Spielberg is in the context of Munich (his 2005 period drama), where Israel sends Mossad agents to take revenge, to an extent, has a parallel to it (Dhurandhar 2). And I think Aditya Dhar has done far better than Steven Spielberg.” RGV also argued that he looped in Nolan too because none of his films have given him an “immersive” experience that Dhar did with Dhurandhar 2.
Dhurandhar 2 has already become the fastest Hindi film to cross the Rs 400 crore mark at the domestic box office. It’s also surpassed the Rs 700 crore mark worldwide. It’s the sequel to Dhurandhar, which became the highest grossing Indian film ever domestically, earning over Rs 890 crore, and the fourth highest grossing Indian film globally, after amassing over Rs 1300 crore.
