Pathaan teaser: Shah Rukh Khan calls India his religion; Deepika Padukone, John Abraham reveal his story

Actor Shah Rukh Khan on Wednesday made the first official announcement about his upcoming film Pathaan, directed Siddharth Anand. While the action film has been in production for several months, it had never been officially confirmed either the actor or production house Yash Raj Films, which has given it a prime Republic Day release in 2023, as a part of its 50-year celebrations. The film also stars Deepika Padukone and John Abraham.
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The one-minute teaser features Shah Rukh and his two co-stars, Deepika  and John, talking about the titular Pathaan in mysterious and ominous tones. What can be gleaned from their words is that the film will be patriotic in nature, and that Pathaan is a patriot for whom the country is his ‘karam and dharam’.
“Humare desh mein hum naam rakhte hain apne dharm ya jaati se, par uske paas inme se kuch nahi tha,” John says, as he poses next to a Tricolour and a superbike. Deepika adds, “Yahan tak ke uske paas koi naam rakhne wala bhi nahi tha, kuch tha, toh bas yehi ek desh.”

Shah Rukh then appears, sporting long hair, and says in silhouette, “To usne desh ko hi apna dharm maan liya aur desh ki raksha ko apna karam.”
He goes on to say, “Yeh naam kyun pada, kaise pada, iske liye thoda intezaar kijiye,” as the screen cuts to black and we see the title treatment, along with the release date.

It is strongly rumoured that Pathaan will tie into a planned shared universe of spy films being produced YRF. The shared universe also includes Salman Khan’s Tiger films, and the Hrithik Roshan-Tiger Shroff-starrer War. Salman has been rumoured to have filmed a cameo for Pathaan, and Shah Rukh is rumoured to have shot a similar cameo for the upcoming Tiger 3, which is also in production.
For Shah Rukh’s fans, the Pathaan announcement has been a long time coming. The actor was last seen on screen in 2018 in the big-budget failure Zero. He went into a self-imposed sabbatical for a while, as he reworked his approach, and was more recently caught up in a controversy involving his son Aryan, further delaying his film work.
But he is said to have a packed slate. After Pathaan, he will be seen in director Atlee’s new film, and will then collaborate for the first time with director Rajkumar Hirani.