Exclusive! Srijit Mukherji on his whodunit projects: I wish I could adopt Agatha Christie’s Poirot but…

Srijit Mukherji is known to be an admirer of anything ‘whodunit’. Thriller has always been his favourite genre. In Bengali literature, he started adapting Sunil Gangopadhyay’s Kakababu and made Mishawr Rawhoshyo, Yeti Obhijaan, and Kakababur Protyaborton with Prosenjit Chatterjee as the detective. Later, he acquired the rights to make Satyajit Ray’s Feluda. With Tota Roychowdhury, Anirban Chakrabarti, and Kalpan Mitra in as Feluda Jatayu and Topshe, the filmmaker has so far made three web series – two for Addatimes and one for Hoichoi. The shooting of one more will begin this year in Kashmir. Besides, he will be directing a Byomkesh Bakshi novel, Durgarahashyo. 

After ticking almost all the boxes of Bengal’s iconic sleuth titles, Srijit is now gearing up to bring Sherlock Holmes on a national OTT platform. As per reports, KK Menon is likely to play his on-screen detective Shekhar Hom. Ranvir Shorey may play the character based on Dr. Watson. If all goes well, Srijit will start shooting early this year. 

However, even after working with all of his favourite detective characters, Srijit could not touch his favourite sleuth: Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot. “Poirot is my all-time favourite detective from the world literature and I love him slightly more than Sherlock Holmes. The reason I cannot do an Indian adaptation of Poirot is that the rights are not available. I think Kenneth Branagh has them. And Also, David Suchet’s portrayal of Poirot is the best book-to-screen transformations and rendition I have ever seen,” said the director.  

Srijit is currently shooting Mrinal Sen’s biopic with Chanchal Chowdhury, Monami Ghosh, and others.