Mumbai, Feb 4 (IANS): Director Rajkumar Hirani, whose last film ‘Dunki’ starring Shah Rukh Khan and Taapsee Pannu received a lot of positive response from the audience, shared that he was in for a shock when someone told him that the idea for his film ‘PK’ was also picked by someone else.

The director made the revelation on senior trade analyst Komal Nahta's podcast ‘Game Changers’. The podcast features an insightful conversation with Rajkumar Hirani. In this candid chat, the director shared behind-the-scenes stories about his creative process and the challenges of making films that remain fresh, even years after their release.

When asked by Nahta about the pressure to keep ideas fresh for a film, Hirani reflected on the journey of PK, one of his most successful films. He said, "Yes, we remember writing PK and we were very happy that we had written a unique idea that was nowhere else”.

However, the excitement turned to concern when someone pointed out a striking similarity to another film.

He further mentioned, “Someone told us that this film has been written by someone else, and when we went and saw it, we were shocked. If we made this, people would say it’s copied, so we were worried”.

The team spent a month finding ways to deal with the problem and were unsure about how to proceed. But then a breakthrough came. He added, "One day Abhijat came and said that we show it like this, that he is looking for God and not finding him, so he files a court case. I said, 'This is interesting, let’s develop it’”.

However, the challenge didn’t end there. The filmmaker and his team later discovered that another film, ‘OMG – Oh My God!’, was exploring a similar concept.

He shared, "Then we had to leave that idea”.