Brahmastra Movie© Dharma Productions

Here’s What We Need To Know About The ‘Brahmastra’ Sequel

Salva Mubarak
Senior Features Writer

Ayan Mukerji’s decade-long dream of making a Lord of the Rings/Harry Potter/Avenger-esque Bollywood movie franchise was finally realised last week when Brahmastra: Part One-Shiva was released, starring Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, and Amitabh Bachchan.

The movie, like almost everything these days, immediately divided the Internet into two groups, with one side cheering the movie for its fascinating premise and impressive CGI work and the other claiming that celebrating a movie of this scale is pointless if the story and performances fall short.

Regardless of your fealties, Brahamastra has already broken many box office records, including scoring the biggest weekend earnings for a Bollywood film, post-pandemic, and having a pan-India box office total of INR 119 crore which is the second-highest number for a Bollywood film, after Sanju (with INR 120 crore). So it’s inevitable that the movie will get many sequels, especially because the open ending of the first part has already made fans excited about the possibilities.

The first part does a decent job of building a world of the various divine astras and the secret society that guards them and opens up the chance for future movies in the franchise to explore it even further. Just to recap, the movie follows Shiva (Kapoor), a DJ with a heart of gold (or light) and the ability to not get burned by fire. Because of some divine connection, he is able to see visions of potentially catastrophic events involving supernatural weapons called astras and the people who wield them. This leads him, and his girlfriend Isha (Bhatt), to an ashram/school for gifted astra-handlers, where he discovers the truth about his powers, his parents, and the titular Brahmastra, an all-powerful weapon that the main villain covets. There’s also Junoon (Mouni Roy), a henchwoman of the main villain, who has an army of incompetent goons on the lookout for the weapon.

The movie ends with Shiva destroying/controlling the power of Brahmastra through love (he tried to sacrifice his life to save Isha and the others) and reawakening the supervillain Dev, his dad, who wants Brahmastra’s superpowers for himself.

It also features many starry cameos, with Shah Rukh Khan’s Mohan Bhargava and his scenes with the Vanarastra easily being the best one, followed closely by Nagarjuna stopping a truck using his Nandiastra.

But the biggest surprise came in the form of Shiva’s parents, who will form the core of the second one, with Deepika Padukone making a blink-and-you-miss appearance as Amrita, Shiva’s mother. This has led to fan speculations that the role of Dev, Shiva’s dad, would be played by Ranveer Singh.

Naturally, we have many questions for the upcoming movies.

If you’re here, then it means you’ve either seen the movie already or do not care for spoilers because there will be plenty and you’ve been warned.

1. Will Shiva’s human friends make an appearance in future movies after being unceremoniously ignored post the appearance of astras and Isha in his life?

2. Would we find out more about SRK and Nagarjuna’s characters and their back stories? Especially the reasons why they’re prominently referred to as ‘Scientist’ and ‘Artist’? Is that a metaphor for something?

3. Will Tensing make like Jon Snow and return from the dead because HE DESERVED BETTER?

4. Would we see the young version of Brahmansh’s Guru (Bachchan) in the second movie? He did say that he was a trainee when Amrita and Dev met, fell in love, and fought each other for the Brahmastra so there’s a good chance he would be there, so will Abhishek Bachchan play that role? Please?

5. Would we discover who was Junoon and how did she find out about Dev, who was supposedly vanquished in the fight on a remote island with Amrita?

6. If Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone play Ranbir Kapoor’s parents in the second movie, will the Internet’s collective breakdown tear a hole in the fabric of our Universe?