Singham Again writer on charges that film uses Ramayana as marketing strategy

Rohit Shetty is returning to the theatres this Diwali with the next instalment of his Cop Universe: Singham Again. The 5-minute trailer showed all the big stars and teased some not-so-subtle Ramayana themes. Immediately, many alleged that the themes looked to have been added last minute to make the film Diwali-ready. Now, Milap Zaveri, one of the film’s writers, has rubbished these charges. (Also read: Singham Again trailer: Ajay Devgn, Deepika Padukone, Kareena Kapoor bring Rohit Shetty twist to Ramayana)
In a conversation with Siddharth Kannan for his YouTube channel, Zaveri said that the film was always about Ramayana even when it was not slated to be released on Diwali. “The story is by Kshitij Patwardhan. When Kshitij met Rohit, he already had this thought what if we marry Ramayan with the Singham Cop Universe and create this story and I think Rohit loved it. This film was originally going to be released on August 15, which has nothing to do with Diwali. The film was delayed at the shooting stage so it just so happened that we are now releasing on Diwali with a film that has Ramayan in it. This is a coincidence. We haven’t added Ramayan to encash Diwali. Ramayan was in the script right from the start, even when we were not coming to theatres on Diwali,” he said.
Singham Again stars Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor, Akshay Kumar, Arjun Kapoor, Tiger Shroff, Deepika Padukone, and Ranveer Singh. The trailer shows their characters as symbols of Lord Rama, Sita, Jatayu, Ravana, Lakshman, Sugreeva, and Lord Hanuman, respectively. The film’s first song is also Jai Bajrangbali, inspired by the Hanuman Chalisa.
Zaveri called Singham Again better than the previous two Singham films, at least on a script level. He said, “I am yet to watch the final film but on the script level, 100 percent it is better than the other Singhams. The emotion of Ramayan that Rohit has brought into the script is beautiful. It is going to create a place in every Indian’s heart.”
Singham Again is the third stand-alone Singham film, which is also a part of the Cop Universe, alongside Simmba and Sooryavanshi. This film makes for an Avengers-style crossover event, with characters from the other two doing cameos here. The mega-budget action drama will be released in theatres on November 1, where it will clash with Kartik Aaryan’s horror comedy Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3.