A secret agent, a dangerous mission, a glamorous location and a larger-than-life star. Bollywood has remixed these ingredients for decades, evolving from borrowed Bond swagger into sprawling spy universes and gritty intelligence stories. What began as a genre has become a blockbuster grammar.
The latest name entering that universe is Rameshwar Nath Kao. On 21 September, Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions and Leo Media Collective announced a theatrical film on the founder and first chief of R&AW. So, has espionage become Bollywood’s repeatable blockbuster formula? Not a guarantee, but an increasingly flexible commercial framework, much like Hollywood’s recurring epic or Dhallywood’s post-Animal action grammar.
When Bollywood first discovered the spy
Bollywood’s spy obsession began in the 1960s with Bond-inspired films including Ramanand Sagar’s Aankhen, Jeetendra’s Farz and Dev Anand’s Jewel Thief, all released in 1967. Secret agents, criminals, disguises, gadgets and glamour became familiar ingredients.
The 1962 India-China war, 1965 India-Pakistan war and Cold War made espionage culturally potent, but the wave faded as Humsaya and Shatranj failed to sustain it. Farz remains one of the few films from the period with a modern trade estimate, at about Rs2.5 crore in India. For decades, spies returned only intermittently.
Then came Tiger and YRF changed the game
Ek Tha Tiger (2012), starring Salman Khan as R&AW agent Tiger and Katrina Kaif as ISI agent Zoya, fused espionage, romance, international locations and star-powered action, grossing Rs334.39 crore worldwide. Tiger Zinda Hai followed with Rs564.2 crore and War with Rs475.62 crore.
YRF then built a universe. Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathaan crossed Rs1,050.3 crore worldwide, Tiger 3 made Rs466.63 crore and War 2 reached Rs303.22 crore. Alpha, starring Alia Bhatt and Sharvari, extended it into a female-led direction. The figures are not a straight upward curve, but the scale shows how espionage became Bollywood intellectual property.
Between the universes: real spies, real wars and very different films
Outside YRF, Agent Vinod, D-Day, Madras Cafe, Baby and Phantom explored espionage through glossy action, political intrigue and counter-terror operations.
Raazi (2018) shifted the focus to Sehmat, a young woman who marries into a Pakistani military family and becomes an Indian informant during the 1971 war, proving the genre could run on character and emotion as much as action.
Naam Shabana, Romeo Akbar Walter, Aiyaary, Bell Bottom, Mission Majnu and IB 71 continued the fascination with real-world intelligence. Their commercial performances varied sharply, showing that espionage itself was never the guarantee; it was the framework.
Then Dhurandhar broke the frame
Aditya Dhar’s Ranveer Singh-led Dhurandhar pushed that framework into Karachi’s criminal underworld, combining espionage with gang politics, violence and geopolitical intrigue. It has grossed Rs1,350.83 crore worldwide, including Rs1,057.8 crore in India and Rs293.03 crore overseas.
The formula is still evolving. Ayushmann Khurrana’s upcoming Udta Teer flips the genre into spy comedy, with him playing a Pakistani intelligence operative who loses his memory in India and mistakenly believes he is an Indian spy.
Unlike YRF’s films, Dhurandhar is not part of the Spy Universe, showing that espionage can power a darker crime-action saga rather than simply another Tiger-style hero story.
The Animal effect, the epic effect and now the spy effect
Dhallywood offers a useful parallel. Animal did not create Toofan, Borbaad or Taandob, but its success became part of a wider action grammar of hyper-masculinity, stylised violence, dark visuals, swagger and oversized set-pieces. Toofan was discussed alongside KGF and Animal, though not as a direct copy.
Hollywood has a similar recurring grammar in 300, Troy, Gladiator and The Odyssey: changing stories and stars, but familiar promises of scale, spectacle, legendary characters and event cinema.
Bollywood’s spy genre is similarly elastic — romance in Ek Tha Tiger, sleek action in War, crossover spectacle in Pathaan, intimate drama in Raazi, procedural thriller in Baby and criminal espionage in Dhurandhar.
The formula is not simply making a spy film. It is building a world in which espionage can carry almost any kind of blockbuster story.
Who is RN Kao?
Kao was no cinematic invention. Born in Benares in 1918, he studied at Lucknow and Allahabad universities, briefly worked for a cigarette company, joined the Indian Imperial Police in 1940 and entered intelligence, including work linked to Jawaharlal Nehru’s security. He helped Ghana establish its intelligence and security organisation and investigated the 1955 Kashmir Princess bombing.
After intelligence failures in 1962 and 1965, India created R&AW in 1968, with Kao as its first chief. He spent nine years building it.
In 1971, R&AW provided intelligence and covert support to Bengali resistance and warned of Pakistan’s planned pre-emptive air strike. Pakistan surrendered in Dhaka and Bangladesh emerged independent, though Kao’s role was part of a wider struggle involving Bengali resistance and later Indian military intervention.
He later advised Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, helped establish the National Security Guard and was associated with Sikkim’s integration. He died in 2002.
The 2028 film covers Kao’s 1955–1971 journey, including R&AW’s creation and first major mission. Leo Media Collective says it spent two years researching and dramatising it; the title, director and cast remain under wraps. Announced on R&AW’s 58th anniversary, its release is timed near its 60th.
Tiger created the universe. Dhurandhar stretched its boundaries. RN Kao brings it back to reality. Bollywood’s next spy story may be less about inventing another super-agent and more about turning the real man behind the mythology into its next cinematic hero.
