it would need to keep that purpose.
Heated Rivalry is the sports romance series that has captivated viewers.
Two rival sportsmen, years of secret meetings and a bond neither can end. Put Varun Dhawan and Sidharth Malhotra in those roles and the posters more or less design themselves.
On Koffee With Karan season 9, Karan Johar asked Dhawan which male co-star he’d pick for an Indian remake of Heated Rivalry.
Dhawan named his Student of the Year partner straight away.
It’s a fun piece of casting talk. Whether the show could survive the trip to India is a much harder question.
What the Original Actually Is
Heated Rivalry is a six-episode Canadian series created by Jacob Tierney for Crave, adapted from Rachel Reid’s Game Changers novels. It became a global hit and has since been renewed for a second season.
Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie play hockey stars Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, who begin a secret relationship as rookies and keep it going for eight years.
That time span is the whole point, because we watch two young men drift from casual encounters into something neither planned for.
An Indian version would have to make that slow shift believable.
Viewers would need to know why these two keep coming back, what makes one laugh and what the other notices that nobody else does.
Without that, you’d get two famous faces, plenty of smouldering looks and not much underneath.
Student of the Year Only Gets You So Far
Dhawan and Malhotra do have history. Both debuted in Student of the Year in 2012, alongside Alia Bhatt, and the film pitted them against each other.
Malhotra’s Abhimanyu is a boy from a modest background chasing the title, while Dhawan’s Rohan is a business tycoon’s son craving his father’s approval.
Their rivalry turns into friendship before Shanaya complicates things.
That’s good raw material for chemistry.
It doesn’t mean the film ever intended them as secret lovers, and fans who read it that way are enjoying a subtext, not uncovering a fact.
A remake can’t just delete the girl and reuse the same two personalities. Nostalgia might sell tickets, but it won’t make anyone care about these men as a couple.
Could It Handle the Sex?
Tierney has been clear that the intimacy in Heated Rivalry is necessary to the story. He told AP that sex is a language in the show, a way of watching the couple change over eight years.
He has told Queerty something similar, describing the scenes as two people working each other out. An Indian adaptation wouldn’t need to copy every scene, but it would need to keep that purpose.
If every encounter ends in an interrupted kiss or a convenient cutaway, audiences get a far tamer story.
The men’s desire becomes something the film keeps hinting at and never properly looks at.
Cinema releases would also have to deal with the CBFC, while a streaming platform would give the filmmakers more room. Even then, adding explicit scenes for the sake of it wouldn’t fix a thin romance.
Cricket, Careers and Real Stakes
Swapping hockey for cricket is the obvious fix but election politics, team loyalties, sponsors and media attention would all shape when the men could meet and what they’d risk if it got out.
The fear should be specific, not a vague idea that coming out ends every Indian sporting career. Sprinter Dutee Chand’s story shows how mixed the reality can be.
Chand has said her relationship became public in 2019 after a family dispute, and she worried about her place on the track.
In a 2021 ESPN piece, she wrote that Athletics Federation of India president Adille Sumariwalla told her it was a personal matter, and that more than two years on her career hadn’t suffered.
One athlete can’t speak for everyone. Still, her experience is a reminder to separate feared rejection from actual rejection, and a supportive coach or teammate could challenge what the leads assume they have to hide.
Families Without the Sermon
Parents, siblings and marriage pressure would all belong in an Indian version of Heated Rivalry.
One lead might be supporting relatives financially, while another has a sister who understands but can’t find the words to tell his father.
Badhaai Do shows how much drama that pressure can produce, with a gay police officer and a lesbian PE teacher entering a lavender marriage to keep their families quiet.
Heated Rivalry is a different story, though, and if most of the runtime goes on winning relatives round, the rivalry and the years of private attachment would take a back seat.
These two deserve scenes that have nothing to do with explaining themselves.
They should be able to pick apart a bad match, wind each other up or just spend a quiet evening together.
Let Them be Flawed
There would be a temptation to make both men spotless so nobody could object. That would make for dull lovers.
Romantic leads get to be jealous, dodge hard conversations and mistake attention for commitment.
Queer characters should get the same freedom, and their mistakes shouldn’t have to stand in for the whole community.
An Indian version of Heated Rivalry should also resist giving one man the “masculine” role and the other the “feminine” one.
Being the confident one in a dressing room says nothing about who needs reassurance, and a captain who commands the team might struggle to ask someone to stay the night.
Who Gets to Tell It?
Dhawan and Malhotra would bring attention, but the quiet moments would rest on their performances. Can one of them show affection without announcing it, or let a small gesture mean something new after an argument?
Behind the camera, queer writers and filmmakers should have real say over the dialogue, humour and everyday behaviour.
That’s a matter of perspective and opportunity, and nobody should be asked to reveal their own identity to justify a role.
Tierney previously said there were two things he wouldn’t compromise on: keeping the sex front and centre and giving Shane and Ilya a happy ending.
A remake might be tempted to look more serious by punishing its lovers with a ruined career, a forced separation or a final sacrifice.
Suffering isn’t automatically more truthful. It would simply swap a romantic promise for a very familiar tragedy.
A hopeful ending can still admit difficulty, with the men facing awkward conversations and an uncertain future and choosing each other anyway.
For queer Desi viewers, there’s real appeal in a story that imagines two men building a life together instead of stopping the moment they admit they want one.
So, Would It Work?
Yes, if the makers commit to the romance as firmly as they’ve committed to the casting.
That means a believable sporting world, specific characters, time for the relationship to grow, families who feel like real people and queer collaborators with genuine influence.
Varun Dhawan and Sidharth Malhotra could be a decent way in.
The real test comes after the reunion photos and press rounds, when the film has to make us forget the casting chat and believe these two have fallen in love.
