Today, as the trailer for Ranveer Singh and Aditya Dhar’s highly anticipated action-spy thriller, Dhurandhar, finally drops, all eyes are on the film's scope and scale. But the biggest point of discussion among trade analysts and fans isn’t just the stellar cast or the intense action; it's the movie's purported length.

Early reports, including those from Bollywood Hungama, suggest that the current runtime for Dhurandhar is more than three hours—specifically, around 3 hours and 5 minutes. If this length is locked by Jio Studios and B62 Studios, it will instantly become the longest film of Ranveer Singh’s career, surpassing Dil Dhadakne Do and Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani. This raises a fundamental question for the 2025 audience: Is a three-hour-plus cinematic marathon a creative necessity or a theatrical gamble?

The Director's Vison: A Narrative That Demands Time

Director Aditya Dhar, who captivated the nation with the taut, well-paced Uri: The Surgical Strike, is known for his commitment to intense storytelling. Sources indicate that Dhar and his team feel the vastness of the Dhurandhar storyline—which reportedly covers cross-border intelligence, espionage, and a deep focus on Ranveer’s character arc—demands every minute of the expanded runtime.

“Director Aditya Dhar is clear that he doesn’t want to rush through the narrative and at the same time, ensure that every scene engages and excites the audience.”

The logic here is sound: for a character-driven saga inspired by true events, every betrayal, every sacrifice, and every strategic move needs breathing room to land its emotional impact. Trimming the runtime to fit a conventional two-and-a-half-hour slot might sacrifice the complexity and emotional weight that Dhar is striving for.

Audience Endurance vs. The Blockbuster Payoff

The modern audience has a notoriously short attention span, and the success of short-form digital content constantly challenges the conventional film format. However, recent blockbusters have shown that audiences will commit to longer runtimes, provided the narrative is gripping.

A poorly-paced, three-hour film feels endless, but a tightly edited, high-stakes film like Dhurandhar—which features a star-studded ensemble including Sanjay Dutt, Akshaye Khanna, and R. Madhavan—has the potential to hold the audience captive. The key is to ensure that the depth of the story, the thrilling action sequences, and Ranveer’s central performance completely justify the extended seat time.

The Two-Part Theory: An Alternative Solution

Given the sprawling narrative and the substantial raw footage shot by the makers, industry whispers suggest an alternative: Dhurandhar may be split into a two-part saga. Reports indicate that the team has "toyed with the idea of breaking it into 2 parts" to do justice to the scale, with Part 2 potentially arriving in the first half of 2026.

If the final edit truly stands at 185 minutes, splitting the story could be a smart strategic move. It would allow the first instalment to end on a massive cliffhanger, ensuring the continuation of the saga and mitigating the risk of audience fatigue in a single sitting.

As the trailer hits the screens today, it must do more than just showcase action; it needs to prove that Aditya Dhar has crafted a true epic—a story so massive that viewers will gladly surrender over three hours of their time for Ranveer Singh's longest, and possibly most ambitious, screen outing yet.
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