‘Welcome To The Jungle’ director rules out ‘Tees Maar Khan’ speculation: ‘Completely different’

Ahmed Khan recently cleared the air surrounding the ongoing speculation that Welcome To The Jungle is similar to Tees Maar Khan and Tropic Thunder.

The 52-year-old filmmaker, who is making headlines for his newly released project, set the record straight on the ongoing debate.

In an exclusive conversation with The Hollywood Reporterthe Baaghi 2 director stated that the two projects are not similar.

Speaking to the outlet, he explained, “Some people have looked at the ‘film-within-a-film’ concept and compared it to Tees Maar Khan as well! But Akshay was the hero of Tees Maar Khanhe has a creative foresight to know if her is repeating himself. Every film arrives with its own distinct flavor. Look at Dangal and Sultan; they released in the same year and both revolved around wrestling, yet they were completely different films. It entirely depends on the filmmaker’s execution. My vision was to create a movie about characters making a movie, who then get trapped in a real-world conflict and must find a way out, in the process becoming real-life heroes.”

Later in the interaction, the Heropanti 2 filmmaker rejected claims that the film is similar to the Hollywood project Tropic Thunder.

“We all live with a sense of nostalgia, and almost every film today draws inspiration from something that came before it. When I set out to make a war film, I asked myself, ‘What direction should we take?’ I decided we should lean entirely into fun,” he added. “The idea here was essentially a Jumanji-esque approach: pull all those distinct worlds together into one cohesive narrative.”

This clarification comes amid the successful theatrical run of Welcome To The Junglewhich has earned approximately ₹93.2 crore worldwide.

Produced by Firoz A. Nadiadwala, the film also features the iconic Hera Pheri trio and was released on Friday, June 26.