Rajkumar Hirani brings his trademark comic punches and light-hearted storytelling to OTT with his streaming debut, the upcoming JioHotstar show Pritam and Pedro. Inspired by the books, Hidden Files (published by Unbound Script, 2025) and Return of the Trojan Horse (published by Leadstart Publishing) by Amit Dubey,the series tells a story centred around cybercrime featuring an unlikely bond between an angry cop, played by Arshad Warsi, and a hacker, played by Vir Hirani. Rajkumar, who serves as the creator, producer and co-writer, says that he discovered these books and was fascinated by how a cybercrime takes place and how it gets solved.While working on the episodic series, the filmmaker realised that the writing process had to be different from a feature film. “Working on a film involves compressing your writing. You can’t really open it up and focus on individual personal journeys of characters. All of that is possible while doing a show. It also requires you to build a lot of tension points, either in the middle of episodes or at the end, which we don’t need as much in a feature film,” says Rajkumar.
Arshad Warsi in ‘Pritam and Pedro’
| Photo Credit:
JioHotstar
The show also marks a reunion of Arshad and Rajkumar after a long time. The actor says that he got a call from the director for the show, and he couldn’t say no. “I liked the script and the entire idea behind it. We all identify with it especially with what’s happening in the world today with cybercrimes; these are crazy, difficult, dangerous times,” says Arshad.Interestingly, the show is directed by Avinash Arun, known for helming gritty crime thrillers like Paatal Lok season 2 and School of Lies. The tone in Pritam and Pedro marks a shift for him, but Avinash says that he doesn’t look at stories through the lens of genre. “What excites me is the kind of relationship that a script builds with me,” he says while invoking the genius of AR Rahman to make his point. “He can make a qawwali, a Bhakti song, a classical song or even an African song. He does it all. So, I feel it is important to have that kind of empathy as an artiste where you can work with any form; to be like water and just flow,” Avinash opines.
