The controversy over Raanjhanaa’s AI-altered re-release continues to grow, with actor Zeeshan Ayyub now voicing his anger. The 2013 romantic drama, starring Dhanush, Sonam Kapoor, Swara Bhasker, and Zeeshan, recently returned to theatres with a modified climax generated through artificial intelligence. In this new version, Kundan (Dhanush) survives his injuries, a major change from the original ending that had left audiences with a bittersweet sense of closure.
Speaking to Digital Commentary, Zeeshan said he was “totally against” the alteration. “In my opinion, it’s a very bad thing. There’s a whole world, and then there’s a storyteller who weaves it. I think the beauty of Raanjhanaa was that it gave you both pain and satisfaction, that final stage of love where you reach your own death, and it was so beautiful that you let it happen. That beauty shouldn’t be taken away. You changed the essence of the film; you took it away,” he said.
The actor also criticised how AI modified one of his own scenes. “You took a very important emotion away from the audience. I even got angry, I thought, ‘I’ll sue them.’ The only respect we have is that our acting is good, and here they made my shot with AI and it’s such a humiliating shot that my heart just sank. I’ll never cry the way shown in the AI version,” he remarked.
In the original ending, Kundan is shot and admitted to the ICU, where Zoya (Sonam Kapoor) visits him in his final moments before his death. The AI version replaces this with a happy conclusion, showing Kundan waking up and reuniting with his friends Murari (Zeeshan) and Bindiya (Swara Bhasker). While both Dhanush and director Aanand L Rai have spoken against the AI changes, Eros Studio has defended the move, calling it a “legal reinterpretation” and accusing Aanand of unauthorised use of Raanjhanaa’s intellectual property in his upcoming film Tere Ishk Mein.