When Ranveer Singh walked away from Don 3 in December 2025, he set off what has become one of Bollywood's most closely watched industry disputes in years, according to Variety.
The conflict pits Singh against Excel Entertainment, the production company run by filmmaker Farhan Akhtar and producer Ritesh Sidhwani. At the center of the dispute is a damages claim of approximately INR45 crore, or about $4.7 million. Around 25 senior figures in the Indian film industry have been drawn into the matter, which has gone through a Big Four audit, passed through the Producers Guild of India, and resulted in a non-cooperation directive from the Federation of Western India Cine Employees.
The timeline of events leading to Singh's departure reveals how long the collaboration had been unsettled. Excel shot a first look for the film at its own expense on April 19, 2023, and released the footage publicly on August 9, 2023. Singh shared that footage on his own social media. Yet the formal term sheet recording the principal terms of his engagement was not signed until August 7, 2024, more than a year after he had been publicly presented as the new Don. The long-form agreement was still being negotiated after that.
In March 2025, Excel sent Singh's manager the latest draft of the script. By August 2025, the production had shared a detailed schedule covering action training, costume trials, and a principal photography window running from January 9 to the end of July 2026. Singh completed a round of action training between November 3 and 12, 2025, with Excel covering those costs. Action rehearsal dates on November 17, 18, 23, and 24 were subsequently canceled by Singh's side. He attended a costume trial on November 27.
On December 2, the day his spy thriller Dhurandhar opened in cinemas, Singh's team notified the production he would be unavailable for rehearsals on December 11 and 12. His exit came shortly after, approximately three weeks before cameras were due to roll.
The Don franchise carries significant weight in Bollywood. The original Don was released in 1978, directed by Chandra Barot and starring Amitabh Bachchan in dual roles as a ruthless mafia don and the slum-dweller brought in by police to impersonate him after his death. In 2006, Farhan Akhtar rebooted the series with Shah Rukh Khan in Don: The Chase Begins Again, which became a major hit. A 2011 sequel, Don 2, was showcased at the Berlin Film Festival and featured a special appearance by Hrithik Roshan.
The dispute is now being detailed for the first time through accounts from people with direct knowledge of the private mediation proceedings. Both sides have offered competing explanations for why the collaboration collapsed, and the full account that has emerged from those mediation rooms presents a more complex picture than either party's public statements.
