Mohit Suri’s directorial ‘Saiyaara’, starring Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda, has taken Bollywood by storm, becoming one of the year’s most celebrated love stories. Not just that, it’s also one of the highest grossing movies of the year. Despite featuring newcomers, the film has defied expectations, grossing over ₹300 crore nett domestically and crossing ₹500 crore globally—now on the brink of surpassing Pathaan at the worldwide box office. In a landscape where Hindi films are struggling to make a mark, Saiyaara’s blockbuster performance has stunned trade analysts and industry veterans alike. But behind this grand success lies an intriguing tale about the film’s most crucial moment—its climax.
In a recent conversation with Komal Nahta on his YouTube show, screenwriter Sankalp Sadanah revealed how challenging it was to land on the right ending. “We had written the whole story but we were yet to crack the climax. We didn’t know what the resolution of the film will be,” he admitted. As brainstorming sessions failed to deliver the perfect conclusion, an unexpected contributor briefly entered the picture—ChatGPT. Sankalp recalled that one of his assistants, Chetan Naidu, casually turned to the AI for help. “At that point, I had an assistant Chetan Naidu and he asked ChatGPT also, just for fun. There was no seriousness behind it. He asked, ‘How would Mohit Suri end such a movie?’ And it responded by saying that hero and heroine should both die.” The suggestion, though morbidly amusing, wasn’t entirely out of place. “Even Mohit was thinking that given the heroine’s condition, it was inching towards a tragedy,” Sankalp shared, laughing at the memory. But they still couldn’t pin down an ending that aligned with the film’s emotional tone. Then, inspiration struck unexpectedly. “One day, I was stuck in traffic and it just came to me,” he said.
