In the case of Border 2, the ban has been announced even before the film is released, which intensifies the discussion about the possibility of a similar commercial downfall. Nevertheless, the first signs indicate that the film has already started operating strong advance bookings in India and is generating expectations among the viewers who are longing for the nationalistic movies.
Border 2 Banned In Gulf Countries: Sunny Deol, Diljit Dosanjh, Ahan Shetty, and Varun Dhawan’s upcoming movie Border 2, a Bollywood patriotic drama, has already encountered an overseas issue prior to its worldwide release. Presently, it is reported that, similar to Ranveer Singh’s recent spy action thriller Dhurandhar, Border 2 is going to be banned in the principal Gulf nations like the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and Bahrain because of the content being considered as propaganda against Pakistan.
The new scenario is reminiscent of the past events. The action-thriller Dhurandhar, which hit theatres in December 2025, faced the same fate as it was banned in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and was not allowed to be screened in theatres despite strong international earnings being anticipated. Later, the distributors calculated that the ban had deprived the movie of around ₹90 crore in potential box office revenue, although the film went ahead and collected more than ₹1,100 crore worldwide.
According to experts from the industry, the bans are a result of apprehensions regarding the depiction of cross-border stories and political themes, which Gulf authorities are wary of due to the heterogeneity of expatriate communities residing in those countries.
Do these bans really impact the films’ success?
Dhurandhar’s case shows that even when blocked in the Gulf, the movie was still able to perform remarkably well, both in the domestic and international markets, and it even broke some records, thereby becoming one of the highest-grossing Indian films of its release period. Its commercial resilience indicates that exclusion from a few markets may not be too much of a problem for a blockbuster film’s total worldwide collection, and especially if the movie is so much liked in India and the other major overseas territories like North America, Europe, and Australia, the collection will be quite huge.
The producers and the trade analysts have been saying that although the Gulf area has been a traditional market for Bollywood that guarantees good returns, mainly on action and family dramas, the losses there can be compensated by other overseas markets. The holiday release timing and the very positive reception among the audience have helped Dhurandhar to regain part of the ground lost in the Middle East.
How Border 2 fits into the picture?
In the case of Border 2, the ban has been announced even before the film is released, which intensifies the discussion about the possibility of a similar commercial downfall. Nevertheless, the first signs indicate that the film has already started operating strong advance bookings in India and is generating expectations among the viewers who are longing for the nationalistic movies. The producers are said to be indifferent to the foreign limitations, and some of the industry experts are saying that Dhurandhar’s success is one example showing that the domestic victory can be so big as to cover the losses of the Gulf revenue.
Which other movies were banned in Gulf countries?
The situation of these two films is not the same. A number of Indian films that are handling politically sensitive and complex cross-border themes, such as Gadar 2, Fighter, and Sky Force, among others, have recently faced similar rejections in the Gulf regions. Banning these films over and over again has led to conversations among filmmakers about how to find a balance between one’s creative expression and the requirements of the international market.
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