Raj and DK reveal Russo brothers saw Stree before getting them on board for Citadel

In an interview with Indianexpress.com, when asked if the Russo brothers–Joe and Anthony–had seen their work before they approached Raj and DK to headline Citadel: Honey Bunny, the Indian makers said the duo watched Stree as well as an edit of The Family Man season one.

“I think they had watched The Family Man season one edit, it hadn’t released yet, and they had watched Stree!” Raj said and added that the Russo Brothers watched something else as well but wasn’t sure if one of the movies was their acclaimed comedy Shor in the City.

“But they had sampled our work. That’s what I realised later. Prime Video had shared with them the edits of the show (The Family Man). It was good that the Russo brothers told us to retain our voice and style, but we had to fit into their universe, which was the balancing act,” he added.

Catch the full cast and crew interview of Citadel here:

Krishna DK said when they met the Russo brothers, the duo told them that they didn’t want them to mount a show which “looks or feels” like their Citadel and wanted them to “fly” with the idea they had for the Indian outing.

“We went to meet the Russo brothers with a one-line concept in LA and pitched it and they were excited right from the beginning. This could have been an indigenous film as well, because Sita R Menon had this idea with the characters, and we built it from there, keeping in mind the universe of Citadel,” DK added.

Citadel: Honey Bunny premieres on Prime Video on November 7.

Describing Citadel as “a world collaborative project,” Raj said everything they have done so far–from 99, Shor in the City, Go Goa Goe, Stree to Family Man– has been their original idea, which always helped them to know how far they could play with humour, reality or spoof.

“We could have given this show a contemporary setting and connect it with Nadia, but we thought, what if we get away with tech? We have a lot of films which use high-tech stuff, so we thought let’s not have any holograms, no gadgets, no crazy communication devices which connects you with anyone across the world or hacking. We took out all of that and thought let them use their guns, fists and one pager is enough. So, we kept it raw, real and got actors who are very good with action,” he added.