3 min readMumbaiFeb 18, 2026 03:09 PM IST
Anurag Kashyap has directed 12 feature films, three short films, and one show since his 2012 two-part seminal gangster saga Gangs of Wasseypur. He’s even turned an actor and starred in 10 feature films and one show since then. But he believes that franchise, starring Manoj Bajpayee, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Richa Chadha, and Huma Qureshi among others is still an albatross around his neck.
“I don’t think other than Farhan Akhtar or Karan Johar, there’s no filmmaker who clicks more selfies than I do. And they all know me as either an actor or the director of Gangs of Wasseypur. And I have a filmography of 200 plus. They remember nothing else. And the only question they ask me, ‘3 kab bana rahe ho sir?’ (When are you making part 3?),” said Kashyap in a recent interview.
He claims he’s started telling them point blank that he won’t make a Gangs of Wasseypur threequel because he wouldn’t cave in to audience expectations. “I didn’t make films to compete in this market of who’s the most successful filmmaker. I came here to make films, and I will make films. I’m ready to bear the consequences. I’ll go back to my indie days,” Kashyap told The Hollywood Reporter India.
Kashyap also blames the “shadow of Gangs of Wasseypur” for the box office failure and underwhelming response to his latest two-part crime comedy, Nishaanchi, which released last year. He claimed that while the film was conceived with Prime Video India as a streaming-only release, the craze for Gangs of Wasseypur prompted them to split it into two parts and release the first one in cinemas.
However, Kashyap points out that didn’t work for the film as a lot of people were taken aback by the abrupt ending of the first part. He said whoever liked Nishaanchi, watched it in one go, either during the trials or on Prime Video once both parts were dropped at the same time. In fact, he insisted that both parts be released together on the platform since the first part failed to collect even Rs 2 crore at the domestic box office.
He also argued that he could’ve dumbed down Nishaanchi by adding a voiceover in the two films like he did in Gangs of Wasseypur. But that would’ve come at the cost of repeating himself. “I thought that history of Bihar wasn’t known that much back then, but Uttar Pradesh is still familiar territory today. Nishaanchi is set in Kanpur, which is a metro city,” Kashyap said.
Story continues below this ad
After the release of Nishaanchi, Kashyap recalls having an introspective conversation with his partner. “Do you think am I becoming irrelevant and not realizing it? Does my voice not carry? Why are people comparing it to Wasseypur because it’s a family story?” He then recalled Francis Ford Coppola’s confession after making the seminal Godfather franchise, “It’s something that made me and ruined me.” That’s how Kashyap admits he feels about Gangs of Wasseypur today.
