Decision to make Drishyam 2 didn’t come easy to director Jeethu Joseph. Even his family cautioned him against it when he expressed his desire to make a follow-up film to Drishyam. “Don’t destroy it,” he was cautioned.

Even he wasn’t ready to take that risk initially. The fear of failing to make a sequel that would honor the critical and commercial success of its predecessor was very real. “I thought there was no chance for the sequel, even as everyone was asking for it,” he told indianexpress.com. He was so cautious that he took about five years to finalize the Drishyam 2 script. And he only went ahead with the shoot after his final draft for the sequel received positive response from his family, friends and colleagues.

“Around 2015, I started thinking about the sequel. The biggest challenge was maintaining the continuity of the characters. It has been about six years, there will be slight changes in the characters and the conditions they live in,” Jeethu said.

In Drishyam 2, he wanted to discuss the consequences of trauma wrought by the crime on the family and how everyone involved in it is struggling to make peace with it. “I thought what would be the reaction of the society to that crime?,” he added. “Georgekutty has been accused of a crime and now people are realizing that there is something (fishy) about it. There is no smoke without fire, right? People start gossiping”

In the first film, Mohanlal’s Georgekutty manages to successfully manipulate the media and turn the public opinion in his favour, putting the cops under pressure to leave his family alone. But, in the second film, things are about to change. “Georgekutty’s standard of life has increased. Now he has become a theatre owner. Automatically, it leads to jealousy in the neighbourhood and people start making stories. So how these sorts of things will affect Georgekutty’s family? Then I thought okay, family trauma should be the core element of this film,” he observed.

Jeethu revealed that Georgekutty gets a bit carried away in his success, only to land himself in soup. “The family doesn’t know how to handle such pressure. Each character has different problems. For example, Rani is feeling completely lost and isolated. Anumol, who is the least affected member in this family, has developed a ‘don’t care attitude.’ Georgekutty has become more confident and careless. And Anju has some psychological issues,” he explained.

Ansiba Hassan noted that her character Anju is still reeling under the trauma caused by the events of the first film. “Anju is the most affected. She can’t sleep, work, or study well. She is unhealthy and she is always depressed. Her family is her only comfort zone,” he observed.

Esther Anil suggested that the family will find the courage to stick together and protect itself against outside threats. “We’re a beautiful family, whatever happens we work together. Even when I have a carefree attitude, I am still there for my sister and my family. And the father keeps it that way,” she said while talking about her character Anumol in the film.

Drishyam 2 also stars Siddique, Murali Gopy, Saikumar among others. The film will start streaming on Amazon Prime Video from February 19.