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10-06-2026
Bureau Report
NEW DELHI/ MUMBAI: A major Indian film workers’ union has withdrawn its appeal asking members not to work with Bollywood actor Ranveer Singh after his alleged abrupt exit from an upcoming film.
The Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE) issued the informal ban last month after the producers of Don 3 complained that Singh had quit the film just weeks before filming was set to begin.
The boycott withdrawal comes after Singh reportedly sent a legal notice to the federation. The media has not seen the notice.
Announced in 2023, Farhan Akhtar’s Don 3 was billed as the next chapter in one of Bollywood’s most successful and enduring action franchises.
The franchise was launched by superstar Amitabh Bachchan in 1978 and rebooted by Akhtar with Shah Rukh Khan in the lead role. Singh had been chosen to carry it into its next chapter.
On Wednesday, FWICE president BN Tiwari backed Singh, saying the industry stood behind him and that the federation’s legal team would respond to the notice.
FWICE chief adviser Ashoke Pandit said the decision followed requests from several industry organizations and urged Singh to meet the union to resolve the dispute.
“We celebrate his stardom… We don’t have any authority to ban anyone. We are hopeful that there will be a positive reaction from Ranveer,” he told a local news channel.
Singh has not commented publicly, though his spokesperson earlier said he held the film industry and the Don franchise in the “highest regard” and had chosen to stay silent.
Singh is one of India’s biggest film stars, known for its including Padmaavat and Gully Boy and his flamboyant, larger-than-life personality.
Most recently, he starred in Dhurandhar, a two-part spy thriller which was one of the country’s biggest box-office successes in recent years.
The dispute began after Akhtar complained that Singh had quit Don 3 just weeks before overseas shooting was due to begin, after producers had already spent about 450 million rupees ($4.7m; £3.4m) on pre-production.
Following the complaint, the union on 25 May asked its members not to work with Singh until he explained his position.
Such action against major stars is rare, though FWICE has previously urged Indian artists not to work with Pakistani performers during periods of tension between the two countries.
In 2025, it issued a similar directive against actor-singer Diljit Dosanjh over his appearance alongside Pakistani actor Hania Aamir in a Punjabi film.
It is also not the first controversy involving Singh.
In 2025, he apologized after facing backlash for mimicking a ritual sequence from the hit Kannada film Kantara at a film festival event, with critics accusing him of disrespecting its cultural significance. He later issued an apology.
In March, there was a particular kind of electricity that only a packed cinema hall in India can generate, the whistles that greet a hero’s slow-motion entry, the applause that rolls like thunder followed by the collective hush before a twist lands.
For a while, that electricity seemed to be fading. Streaming thinned crowds and big budget films faltered. Even big releases opened to less than passionate responses and then, in December, came Dhurandhar.
By the end of 2025, the spy thriller hadn’t just topped the box office, it had blown it open, grossing about $155m (£116.34m) worldwide and ranking among Hindi-language cinema’s biggest hits.
