For years, audiences have wondered when filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani would finally make his long-awaited entry into the OTT space. Now, with Pritam And Pedro set to premiere on JioHotstar, the acclaimed director has not only expressed his excitement about the project finally seeing the light of day but also candidly explained why the journey took far longer than anyone expected.
At the launch event of Pritam And Pedro, the question of the series' lengthy development timeline became a talking point when JioHotstar's Vivek acknowledged that Hirani had taken considerable time to bring the project to completion. The filmmaker himself responded with humour, admitting, "JioHotstar ne mujhe bohot jhela hai," drawing laughter from the audience while hinting at the painstaking process behind the series.
But what exactly caused the delay?
According to Hirani, Pritam And Pedro did not emerge through his conventional filmmaking process. Unlike his blockbuster films, which often begin with a singular idea and evolve into a screenplay, this project took shape through a series of unexpected events that began during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The seeds of the series were planted when media veteran Uday Shankar encouraged Hirani to explore storytelling for the OTT medium. While the filmmaker was intrigued by the idea, he did not immediately have a story that felt right for the format.
Then came the pandemic.
During the nationwide lockdown, Hirani was approached by Harish Baijal, then head of the Mumbai Cyber Cell, to create an awareness-based project on cybercrime. Working entirely from home, Hirani produced the short film using animation and even enlisted his son, Vir Hirani, to contribute voice work for the project.
What initially appeared to be a one-off public awareness initiative would eventually become the foundation of something much bigger.
The cybercrime project led Hirani to Amit Dubey, an author known for writing short stories inspired by real-life cybercrime cases.
Fascinated by the material, Hirani began exploring the possibility of adapting these stories. However, rather than developing a straightforward anthology, he chose a far more ambitious route.
The filmmaker revealed that he and his team spent years weaving multiple independent stories into a single, cohesive narrative. Instead of writing a traditional screenplay from scratch, they painstakingly connected different cybercrime cases and characters to create the world of Pritam And Pedro.
That unconventional creative process appears to be one of the primary reasons the series took so long to materialise.
Adding to the scale of the project is an impressive team that includes director Avinash Arun, actor Vikrant Massey, and several long-time Hirani collaborators. Familiar faces from the filmmaker's journey, including his son Vir Hirani who is starring alongside Arshad Warsi, Boman Irani, writer Abhijat Joshi, action director Sham Kaushal, lyricist Swanand Kirkire, composer Shantanu Moitra and singer Shreya Ghoshal, were also present during the event, underscoring the personal significance of the project for Hirani.
For a filmmaker whose filmography includes some of Indian cinema's most beloved titles, stepping into OTT was never going to be a hurried exercise. If anything, Hirani's explanation suggests that the delay stemmed not from hesitation but from his relentless pursuit of getting the story right.
Now, after a journey that began in the uncertainty of the pandemic and evolved through real-life cybercrime stories, Pritam And Pedro is finally ready for audiences.
The question of why it took so long may have been answered. The bigger question now is whether Rajkumar Hirani's meticulous approach will once again deliver the kind of storytelling that has defined his career for over two decades.