Student of the Year 2: With Tiger Shroff, Ananya Pandey, Tara Sutaria, will Karan Johar get a mix of legacy, talent?

Six years after introducing three promising actors to the Hindi film industry in Student of the Year, Karan Johar has now introduced a few more fresh faces in the sequel_ , Student of the Year 2. _

While Tiger Shroff was announced as the lead actor and Punit Malhotra as the director months ago, Dharma Productions has revealed the rest of the ‘students’ now that the film has gone on floors. Chunky Pandey’s daughter Ananya will make her debut with this back-to-school flick, along with Tara Sutaria, singer and former VJ.

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Ananya is the third female star kid that Johar is introducing this year after Jaanhvi Kapoor and Sara Ali Khan. On the fifth anniversary of Student of the Year, Johar announced that he will launch Sridevi and Boney Kapoor’s daughter Jaanhvi in Shashank Khaitan’s romantic drama _Dhadak_ , the remake of Marathi hit Sairat. The film, in which she is paired opposite fellow newcomer Ishaan Khatter, is slated to release on 15 June. Saif Ali Khan and Amrita Singh’s daughter Sara was also signed for Rohit Shetty’s cop drama Simmba , in which she will be paired opposite Ranveer Singh. Co-produced by Shetty and Johar, the film is slated to release on 28 December. While Sara’s debut film, Abhishek Kapoor’s Kedarnath, is stuck in legal trouble , Simmba is most likely to be her big break. Now, allegations of nepotism must be ready to be fired at Johar for not letting go of his nepotistic ways. But in an exclusive interview to Firstpost, the casting directors of Student of the Year 2, revealed how Ananya’s casting in the long awaited sequel is not a result of her father’s goodwill. “She (Ananya) auditioned for the film. In fact, all the actors auditioned for it. Initially, Mukesh Chhabra was doing the casting and then we came on board. Karan did not ask us to sign Ananya. In fact, I met her on the sets of Raees and asked her to audition for the role,” said Anmol Ahuja, one half of Casting Bay. He added that since Ananya was Rahul Dholakia’s Assistant Director on Raees, he met her through Excel Entertainment, and not Dharma Productions. “I work closely with Excel so I met her there. So there is no question of nepotism in this case,” added Anmol. While Student of the Year was also a cesspool of nepotism, it did give Hindi cinema two of its most salable and talented stars in Alia Bhatt and Varun Dhawan, who are gearing up for the release of possible game changers _Raazi_ and _October_ respectively. On the other hand, Sidharth Malhotra has sustained his Bollywood career at best, though he is still struggling for a blockbuster to seal his legacy. Though ’legacy’ for the other two actors came in inheritance, it can be argued that they have indeed proved they are capable of way beyond what their genes could offer. The lead star of Student of the Year 2, Tiger Shroff, is also another example of how he has established a niche as an action-dance hero in the industry, a departure from his celebrated father Jackie Shroff’s onscreen persona. The success of _Baaghi 2_ is testimony to his box office appeal.

Will Student of the Year 2 then prove to be, like the first part, a glossy launch film of a second generation star who could go on to prove her box office mettle, a la Alia Bhatt?