There is always a second time. Nine months ago, Tarun Dudeja’s debut directorial venture, Dhak Dhak, had a muted release. Today, in stark contrast stands his next, Bad Newz—starring Vicky Kaushal, Triptii Dimri and Ammy Virk—which has generated much buzz before its theatrical release.

“Dhak Dhak didn’t have a trailer launch event. At Bad Newz’s trailer launch, I sat in the first row. Karan Johar [producer] and Vicky took my name. The experience was the opposite of Dhak Dhak,” says Dudeja, who serves as the screenplay and dialogue writer.

That’s not where the differences end. The two movies are also poles apart in genre and tonality. While Dhak Dhak told the story of four women coming into their own over a road trip, Anand Tiwari’s directorial venture is a comedy centred on the rare medical condition, heteropaternal superfecundation, where a woman gets pregnant with twins from different men. 

Dudeja remembers being introduced to the story, penned by Ishita Moitra, three years ago. “There was a newspaper article about this case in China. She, along with Somen Mishra, who is a creative producer at Dharma Productions, built a world around it. Anand and I took that and kept experimenting with it. The idea was to bring a flavour of the ’90s comedies, while keeping it realistic and [rooted in] emotions so that it feels logical. We all love ’90s comedies, but today’s audience is evolved. So, we had to maintain a balance [between comedy and emotions]. Writing a comedy is always tough, especially cracking dialogues. But Anand put in a lot of work with me to get the punches out. We were also aware that emotional scenes and conflicts needed to be written sensitively.”

Translating humour from paper to screen is a tough job. Not if you have Kaushal, Dimri and Virk as the lead actors, says the writer. “All three have terrific comic timing, and elevated our lines.” Which brings us to the most hilarious sequence in the trailer—in a meta joke, Kaushal tells a character he will have to pass over his dead body to rip apart a poster of Katrina Kaif, his actor-wife.

Dudeja laughingly says, “It was there in the script. We wanted some Vicky jokes. More than us, he laughed at this joke. He also performed the scene with utmost conviction. His dialogue delivery makes it funnier than it is.”