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While “The Family Man”, starring Manoj Bajpayee, followed a middle-class man working for a covert government agency, “Citadel” operates in a fictional universe where spy agencies are not tied to governments and handle larger global missions.
“We had to be very different from “The Family Man”, we couldn’t do the same things. It was easier to do it, but we thought we should pick a different style for this,” Raj told PTI in an interview.
DK said they knew from the start that “Honey Bunny” needed to stand apart from their previous work.
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“So, that’s the thread we adhered to, and then we started creating these spies. Even in terms of treatment, they are slightly larger-than-life than Srikant Tiwari. So, they are an entirely different breed of spies,” he said.
“Honey Bunny” serves as the Indian chapter of “Citadel”, which started with an American show headlined by Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Richard Madden.
The Prime Video series, featuring Samantha Ruth Prabhu opposite Dhawan, is billed as a riveting narrative that fuses elements of a gritty spy action thriller with the heartwarming allure of a love story.
“When stuntman Bunny (Dhawan) recruits struggling actress Honey (Prabhu) for a side gig, they are hurled into a high-stakes world of action, espionage, and betrayal. Years later, as their dangerous past catches up, the estranged Honey and Bunny must reunite and fight to protect their young daughter, Nadia,” reads the official plotline.
The idea for “Honey Bunny” came from Sita R Menon, a frequent collaborator of Raj & DK.
The writer, who has worked with the director duo on projects such as “99”, “Shor in the City”, “Go Goa Gone”, as well as shows “Farzi” and “Guns & Gulaabs”, said she aimed to ensure “equal weightage” to both Dhawan and Samantha’s characters in the story.
“This is the best way you can bring equality… The effort was to give equal weightage to both protagonists and to every character in the story. I had pitched two ideas to Raj & DK, and one of them was picked up. But the three of us worked in tandem in terms of developing it on blank paper. It took almost five years,” Menon said.
Many people on social media found the trailer of “Honey Bunny” to be similar to the Hollywood action-comedy “Mr. & Mrs. Smith”, which featured Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as a spy couple.
When asked about the same, Raj said, “It has nothing to do with ‘Mr. & Mrs. Smith’ at all. If you know us, we won’t be derivative in any of that.” The filmmaker teased that there are “bigger plans” being enacted in the US for the “Citadel” franchise, which also saw the release of an Italian version titled “Citadel: Diana” earlier this month.
“That’s their train; they started it, and we are focused on our bogey. They’ve got big plans… They are shooting season two, and there are a lot of plans. As things come out, it will evolve more. I know our characters are going to be in their world, but we’ve to wait and see how it is going to grow,” Raj said.
Asked if the mixed reviews of the original “Citadel” had any bearing on their show, Raj said they were always focused on their vision for their show.
“We never felt in competition with other filmmakers because we came from outside. We had our little ideas and ambitions. So, we never compared, like, ‘Oh wow, that guy is doing such good work,’ because there’s no end to it.” He added that shows and films in the action space are generally not a favourite of critics.
“Critics’ favourite genre would be a non-commercial genre, usually which would get four or five-star reviews. Comedy, action, rom-com, don’t get it (that rating), and comedies are the least. As far as comedy comes, they’ve one star, and anything that’s drama starts with three,” he said.
Also featuring Kay Kay Menon, Simran, Saqib Saleem, Sikandar Kher, Soham Majumdar, Shivankit Parihar, and Kashvi Majmundar, “Citadel: Honey Bunny” will debut on November 7 on Prime Video.