Indian filmmaker Prashanth Neel is reframing expectations for “Dragon” – his NTR-starring action film targeting a June 2027 release – as his most ambitious patriotic statement to date, while confirming that a “Salaar” sequel will go into production the moment it wraps and revealing plans to eventually step away from large-scale action for a mythological series he has spent roughly two decades developing.
“This is probably going to be our biggest attempt at making a patriotic movie,” Neel tells Variety.
The promotional glimpse – released on the eve of NTR’s birthday and viewed more than 49 million times within two days – officially unveiled the title and laid out the film’s historical and criminal scaffolding. It constructs a premise in which British colonial rule in India was fundamentally sustained by control of the opium trade, with the British commanding 95% of the global market through Afghanistan and the Golden Triangle. In the film’s telling, the British exit from India in 1947 fractured that empire into two warring factions – the Afghan Trading Company and the Golden Trading Company – igniting the conflict at the story’s center.
Reshoot rumors that had circulated ahead of the glimpse are unfounded, Neel says. The production took time off to allow NTR to build his physique without CGI assistance. “They’re just rumors. We never reshot a single scene till now. The only reason we took some time off was because he wanted to be authentically fit for the movie without any CGI. He wanted to build a body,” he says, while also negating rumours of “Dragon” being a spy film.
