Drishyam: The Conclusion director Abhishek Pathak on Meera's arc and the big twist

Ajay Devgn's crime thriller franchise has reached its final chapter, and audiences are turning up. Drishyam: The Conclusion, the third and last instalment, opened in theatres on Friday to largely positive reviews. Critics have praised its performances, suspense and twists.

Reports put the film's worldwide collection at Rs 179 crore in its first two days. That is Rs 93 crore on opening day and Rs 86 crore on Saturday. In India, the net figure reportedly reached Rs 125.03 crore after three days, and reports say the film is on course to pass Rs 150 crore at home.

Director Abhishek Pathak, who also made Drishyam 2, has spoken about how the team handled the ending. In a recent interview, he said the writers knew fans had spent years guessing how Vijay Salgaonkar might escape once again, so they chose to stay away from those theories. "We had to be smarter than anyone in the theatre," he said, adding that finding the one thing viewers had missed took time.

Pathak also called Tabu's Meera Deshmukh the spine of the story. Still looking for answers after her son's death, Meera is now stepping away from the legal path she took in the first two films. "She tried to go by the book in part one and even two, but now she wants to go a different way," he said. He added that he did not want her search for justice to turn her into a purely negative character.

Devgn returns as Vijay alongside Tabu, Shriya Saran, Ishita Dutta, Rajat Kapoor and Mrunal Jadhav. Jaideep Ahlawat joins as Rajveer Singh Tomar, a crime branch officer chasing the case, and Prakash Raj also plays an important role. Pathak wrote the film with Aamil Keeyan Khan and Parveez Shaikh. It is a Panorama Studios production presented by Star Studio18.

The franchise is adapted from the Mohanlal-led Malayalam hit. The Hindi series began with the late Nishikant Kamat's Drishyam in 2015, about a cable operator who protects his family after his daughter is pulled into a crime. It continued with Drishyam 2 in 2022, one of that year's biggest Hindi earners.