Advance booking for the Malayalam crime drama Drishyam 3 has opened strongly ahead of its May 21, 2026 release, with early ticket sales in the Hindi belt outpacing the presales of Ranveer Singh's cop drama Dhurandhar, according to trade trackers monitoring both titles on Wednesday, September 30. The sequel, directed by Jeethu Joseph, brings back Mohanlal as Georgekutty, the ordinary cable operator turned master of concealment, and the appetite for his return is already visible in the numbers, even though the film is still weeks away from hitting screens.
A Sequel That Has Been Building for Years
Drishyam 3 arrives with unusual momentum for a Malayalam title. The first two films, both written and directed by Jeethu Joseph, became crossover events, the second gaining a massive second life on streaming during the pandemic. The new installment picks up with Georgekutty facing an organized new threat as his family's dark secret refuses to stay buried, and the promotional material has leaned into the idea that the walls are closing in. The tagline asks how much more he is willing to sacrifice, which suggests the film will push the character further than either of its predecessors.
The cast remains a reunion of familiar faces. Meena returns as Rani, with Siddique as Prabhakar, Asha Sarath as IG Geetha Prabhakar, Murali Gopy as IG Thomas Bastin, Ansiba Hassan as Anju, Esther Anil as Anumol, and Veena Nandakumar as Yamini. For audiences who followed the franchise from the beginning, the continuity is part of the draw. There is no recasting, no soft reboot, just the same ensemble walking back into a story that has already put them through the wringer.
How Drishyam 3 Compares to Dhurandhar
The comparison with Dhurandhar is instructive because the two films are chasing overlapping audiences in the Hindi market. Ranveer Singh's film has been positioned as a large-scale action vehicle, and its presales have been steady. But Drishyam 3 has something that is harder to manufacture: a decade of accumulated goodwill and a central character who has become a kind of folk hero, a family man who outsmarts the system not through violence but through patience and calculation. That profile tends to convert into early bookings among viewers who rarely buy tickets in advance for Malayalam releases.
It is worth noting that the Hindi version of Drishyam 3 is arriving in a marketplace where dubbed south Indian films have become routine box-office players rather than niche offerings. The franchise's previous installment was already widely watched in Hindi, and the third film is being treated by exhibitors as a mainstream wide release rather than a limited one. The advance booking trend suggests that positioning is justified, at least in the opening window.
Genre, Runtime, and What to Expect
The film runs 157 minutes, which is in line with the franchise's preference for slow-burn tension over quick cuts. The genres attached to it are crime, drama, and thriller, and the director has never pretended otherwise. Jeethu Joseph's style is patient and procedural, more interested in the mechanics of a cover-up than in chase sequences. The TMDb rating currently sits at 6.6 out of 10, though that figure reflects early audience reaction from previews and database entries rather than a settled critical consensus.
For a franchise built on a single irreversible act and the lies that follow, the third chapter has to justify its existence rather than simply extend the story. The premise, with an organized threat replacing the more personal antagonists of earlier films, suggests the scope has widened. Whether that expansion serves the material is the central question the film will have to answer.
What the Early Numbers Mean
Advance booking at this stage is a leading indicator, not a verdict. Drishyam 3 is still weeks out, and presales can shift dramatically as release approaches and reviews land. But the early trend gives the film a favorable narrative heading into its marketing push, and it gives exhibitors in the Hindi belt confidence to allocate more screens. For a Malayalam film competing against a big-ticket Hindi star vehicle, that is already a meaningful result.
The box office story will ultimately be decided by word of mouth, which has always been this franchise's strongest asset. If Drishyam 3 delivers the kind of tense, morally complicated thriller that made the first two films endure, the presales advantage over Dhurandhar may prove to be the first data point in a much longer run. For now, Mohanlal's Georgekutty is back, and audiences are already lining up to see what he does next.
Source: Filmibeat
