3 min readNew DelhiMay 14, 2026 02:37 PM IST
Sanjay Dutt’s portrayal of SP Chaudhary Aslam in Aditya Dhar’s blockbuster films Dhurandhar and Dhurandhar 2 earned widespread acclaim. With the movies, the actor also finally tasted box office success after a string of failures, including Bhoomi (2017), Kalank (2019), Panipat (2019), and Shamshera (2022), among others. In a recent interview, Kaante director Sanjay Gupta said that the Dutt’s potential had been “wasted” before the Ranveer Singh-starrer Dhurandhar.
During a conversation with InControversial Podcast, Gupta was asked about Dutt’s current career trajectory. “We are constantly in touch. We have been working on what to do next. My problem is that it has to come organically. If you see from 2007, we made Lokhandwala, and we released Wadala in 2014, but it took those many years for the story. So likewise, now I am seeing Sanju do all this and he is doing a great job, there’s no denying that,” he replied.
The filmmaker continued, “But before Dhurandhar, I feel he has also been grossly wasted. The kind of films that he has done…the filmmakers did not know how to present him. They didn’t know his strengths, and they didn’t take that time out to study. I didn’t have to study; I grew up with him.”
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Sanjay Dutt, along with Amitabh Bachchan, Sunil Shetty, Lucky Ali, Mahesh Manjrekar, and Kumar Gaurav, starred in Sanjay Gupta’s Kaante. Sharing an update on the long-awaited sequel to the 2002 crime-thriller, Gupta shared, “Today also when I see him, there’s still so much potential and he can carry a film on his shoulders but provided we give him that film. That is what we were constantly going back and forth on. We have also cracked a very base level story for Kaante 2. That is something I will now start writing.”
“After Kaante, it was bound in some legal shackles, which has been taken care of now. So, because that is taken care of, I am investing in it creatively – into writing the sequel. So, let’s see where it goes,” he added, while revealing a wish list of actors for his movie: “If you ask me for my wish list today, I would make Kaante with Sanjay Dutt, Abhishek Bachchan and Manoj Bajpayee, and to this, add Jaideep Ahlawat, Vijay Verma, and Ali Fazal.”
Sanjay Dutt and Sanjay Gupta have been close friends for over two decades now. The filmmaker-actor duo has collaborated on several hits, including Kaante, Musafir, and Shootout at Lokhandwala. However, the two reportedly had a major fallout in 2007 over financial disagreements. They eventually reconciled around 2013 and have since expressed their desire to collaborate again.
