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Amazon Prime Video shelves Rs. 120 cr. budget Gulkanda Tales; Raj & DK’s shows under fire February 18, 2025 at 01:39PM

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By Banglore Film City

Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K. are filmmakers who haven’t had a dearth of work since OTT platforms blew up in India. The two have given back-to-back shows and some of the most successful and talked about web series since then. The Family Man (2019) starring Manoj Bajpayee was an instant hit on Prime Video and soon it got green-lit for a second season, which was also received well. Then they made Farzi (2023) for Prime Video, which marked B-town star Shahid Kapoor’s OTT debut. They also made Guns & Gulaabs in the same year for Netflix, which had top actors like Dulquer Salmaan and Rajkummar Rao. Both shows got mixed reactions from the audience.

In 2024, came their biggest show, Citadel: Honey Bunny – a spy thriller backed by Russo Brothers - no less! This marked the OTT debut of Bollywood star Varun Dhawan who was cast opposite actor Samantha Ruth Prabhu. This was an ambitious project, but it got a poor response, way below what Prime Video and Russo Brothers would have imagined. Industry sources tell us that the Indian instalment of Citadel may not be renewed for another season as the cost of production did not justify the output. Citadel: Honey Bunny was promoted widely by Prime Video along with the American Citadel starring Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Richard Madden and Citadel: Diana, the Italian version, which got positive reviews.

Before the release of Citadel: Honey Bunny, Bollywood Hungama sat down with Raj & DK in London for an interview and asked them how they manage juggling all the work that they have taken. Raj Nidimoru said, “DK and I had to wait a lot in the early part of our career for stars to give us dates. We have a lot of stories, and we can’t wait to get them all out. Now that we have the reigns in our hands for the past few years and we became producers, it’s time to push all these out.” The show got flak for casting Varun Dhawan in an action role, to which Raj had told Bollywood Hungama, “I like to push actors, I like to see them in a new light.”

Reports are already out that financial fraud has been found on the production of their next big ticket show Rakt Bramhand starring Aditya Roy Kapur, Wamiqa Gabi, Samantha Ruth Prabhu and Ali Fazal. The financial fraud goes up to as high as Rs 2 crore. A scam connected with the executive producer of the show. Mishandling of funds was detected which exposed accounting irregularities. A source said that Netflix has taken this matter seriously and launched an investigation. Netflix and D2R films hold the highest standards of compliance in their production. Therefore, when an irregularity was observed, the investigation was initiated across the board (internally and externally). The investigation process is still ongoing. Rakt Bramhand was going to be a part of Netflix’s slate announcement but suddenly it didn’t see any mention along with the other series raising more questions.

Well, that’s not it. Here is another big blow to the director duo. The two have completed a series titled Gulkanda Tales – a period sex comedy for Prime Video, which stars Pankaj Tripathi, Abhishek Banerjee and Kunal Kemmu. Raj and DK are the producers of this and Tumbaad director Rahi Anil Barve is the director. This is a fictional story of a kingdom in ancient India where strange events occur. A source associated with the project told BH. “Why will anyone get upset with any of these jokes in the show? This is fiction. This has a funny take on feminism and how misogyny is dealt with and some comedy which shows mishaps in Kamasutra.” Another fact is that this show has gone through quite a bit of re-shoots and re-edits considering the feedback from Prime Video and because of that the budget has gone up. Bollywood Hungama heard about the management of the OTT platform flipped when they saw the rushes that have been shot, as none of this will be acceptable in today’s atmosphere. Prime Video did not comment on any of this, but we hear this show may not see the light of the day, anytime soon even though it’s completely shot. A whopping amount of Rs 120 crore has been spent on it and it’s been over two years since it was announced.

Trade experts said that the filmmakers have taken way more than they can handle and it’s showing in the quality which is evident from their recent releases.

One sigh of relief for Raj and DK is, that their tried and tested show The Family Man S3 starring Manoj Bajpayee for Prime Video seems to be on track. That’s the one they are now banking on.

Also Read: EXCLUSIVE: Gulkanda Tales to release on Prime Video during THIS period



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