.jpg)
Yash Raj Films has debuted the first poster for Shah Rukh Khan’s grand comeback vehicle, Pathaan. The poster release coincided with the star’s 30th anniversary in films. He made his big screen debut with 1992’s Deewana, after having established himself on television with the hit show Fauji.
Khan, who is popularly known as SRK, is perhaps among the world’s biggest movie stars, with a fan-base than extends beyond India’s estimated 1.4 billion population and across South Asian communities around the globe. He’s also a part of Bollywood’s last remaining generation of old-school stars, alongside Salman Khan and Aamir Khan. Each of them, in recent years, has experienced major career setbacks.
SRK’s last film was the ambitious misfire Zero, directed by Aanand L. Rai. A visual effects-heavy comedy drama, the film tanked so badly that it forced Khan to go into a self-imposed acting sabbatical. By the time Pathaan is eventually released, over four years will have passed since Khan’s last big screen appearance—the longest gap between films in his three-decade career.
The new poster unveiled his gritty look as the titular Pathaan—presumably a code name of some sort—and came in four versions, each bearing the title in different languages; Hindi, English, Tamil and Telugu. The film itself will be released in Tamil and Telugu in addition to the original Hindi, a strategy that is quickly becoming common for big Bollywood films as they try to make inroads into South Indian markets. In recent years, it has been observed that films from the south of the country have been doing exceedingly well not just in the north, but also, like RRR, around the world.
Pathaan was announced earlier this year with a special video that also featured stars Deepika Padukone and John Abraham, but didn’t properly reveal Khan’s character. The new poster shows him wearing a white shirt and heavy boots; his bearded face appears cut up, as he leans on a shotgun. While this hasn’t been confirmed, Pathaan is supposedly the fourth installment in YRF’s planned shared universe of spy films, which began with Ek Tha Tiger and its immediate sequel, Tiger Zinda Hai. Both films starred Salman, who is currently filming the third installment in the franchise.
Salman previously confirmed that he’d filmed a cameo for Pathaan, and that SRK had done likewise for the tentatively titled Tiger 3. It’s also worth noting that Pathaan is directed by Siddharth Anand, whose blockbuster War—starring Hrithik Roshan and Tiger Shroff—will also be retrofitted into the YRF spy universe, if it actually ends up panning out.
SRK’s comeback year also includes the mysterious action film Jawan (directed by Atlee and slated for a June release) and Dunki (directed by hitmaker Rajkumar Hirani and scheduled to be released in theaters around Christmastime). Pathaan is the first out of the gate, and has been locked for a January 25 release. You can get a better look at the posters below:
