General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Citadel: Honey Bunny

Citadel: Honey Bunny is an Indian Hindi-language spy action thriller television series that premiered on Prime Video on November 7, 2024, in India and across more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.¹ Created and directed by Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K. (together known as Raj & DK) and written with Sita R. Menon, it is a prequel and spin-off of the American series Citadel, following the origins of that show's lead character Nadia Sinh through her parents, Honey and Bunny.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Premiere	November 7, 2024, on Prime Video in India and more than 240 countries and territories¹
Creators	Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K., written with Sita R. Menon; produced by D2R Films and Amazon MGM Studios, executive produced by the Russo Brothers' AGBO¹
Leads	Varun Dhawan as Rahi "Bunny" Gambhir, a stuntman; Samantha Ruth Prabhu as Hanimandakini "Honey" Raj, a struggling actress³
Setting	Two timelines, 1992 and 2000, in India and Europe⁴
Format	One season of six episodes, roughly 45 to 50 minutes each, in Hindi³
Reception	75% Tomatometer and 61% Popcornmeter on Rotten Tomatoes; 6.2/10 on IMDb⁵^•⁶
Status	Cancelled after one season in April 2025, with its storylines folded into Citadel season 2⁷

Spoilers

Premise and structure

The series tells a love story across two eras. In the 1990s timeline, Honey is a struggling actress in India who cannot pay her bills when Bunny, a successful stuntman, convinces her to help with one of his "side hustles," which draws both into espionage; sources place the action years at 1992.⁸^•⁴ In the second timeline, set in 2000, Honey raises her young daughter Nadia alone while co-managing a café, and Bunny performs in a band in Bucharest.⁸ When the couple's dangerous past catches up with them, the estranged pair must reunite to protect their daughter.⁹

The narrative jumps between the two eras, a structure one parents' guide describes as occasionally disorienting, though its action sequences keep viewers engaged.⁸ A review in the Free Press Journal noted the story leaping from Nainital to Bombay and across Europe from Bucharest to Belgrade.¹⁰

Place in the Citadel universe

Citadel: Honey Bunny is the Indian installment of a planned multinational franchise built around the clandestine spy agency Citadel and its adversary syndicate Manticore, conceived by executive producers Anthony and Joe Russo with Angela Russo-Otstot and Scott Nemes through their studio AGBO.¹ Honey and Bunny are the parents of Agent Nadia, the character played by Priyanka Chopra Jonas in the original American series, and a young Nadia (Kashvi Majmundar) appears in the 2000 scenes.²

Director Raj Nidimoru described joining the franchise as part of "a global effort, something that hasn't been done before, where they created a whole multiverse across the countries and different agents are going to pop up across the world."² The Italian spin-off Citadel: Diana premiered on October 10, 2024, about a month before the Indian series, and per ComingSoon's report has no direct connection with Honey Bunny or the original series.²

Cast and production

Varun Dhawan and Samantha Ruth Prabhu lead the series, with Kay Kay Menon as Guru Baba and an ensemble including Simran, Saqib Saleem, Sikandar Kher, Soham Majumdar, Shivankit Parihar, and Kashvi Majmundar.¹^•³ The show marked Dhawan's streaming debut; he said the directors pitched it as a Jason Bourne-style project built on hand-to-hand combat rather than futuristic gadgets.⁹ Samantha described Honey as an aspiring actress with a varied arc, moving from naive newcomer to fierce mother, and said she drew on her own early career as a struggling actress.⁹

Raj & DK, known for The Family Man and Farzi, said the collaboration with the Russo Brothers was their first with outside collaborators; Raj recalled meeting them in the United States for a conference-style read-through of the episodes and called them "very gracious and extremely collaborative."¹¹ In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País, DK said the creators chose not to lean on Western film and television references, preferring to stay faithful to their own style.¹²

Reception and viewership

Critical response was mixed to positive. On Rotten Tomatoes the season holds a 75% Tomatometer from 16 reviews and a 61% Popcornmeter audience score, with a critics consensus calling it "a franchise standout with serviceable action sequences and convincing performances."⁵ IMDb users rate it 6.2/10 from about 9,500 ratings.⁶ Positive reviews included Decider's Meghan O'Keefe, who called it "a hell of an entertaining ride," and Rolling Stone's Alan Sepinwall, who praised the storytelling competence; the Hindustan Times' Abhimanyu Mathur found it better than the original Citadel but short of Raj & DK's own standards.¹³ The Free Press Journal gave it three stars and called it a "sparkless" spy saga with a disjointed structure.¹⁰

Prime Video reported strong global viewership: according to figures the company shared with El País, Citadel: Honey Bunny was the platform's most-watched content worldwide in the week of its November 7 premiere, placed among the ten most-watched titles in 150 countries, and reached number one in India and about thirty other countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Italy, and Brazil.¹²

Cancellation

In April 2025, Amazon MGM Studios canceled both Citadel: Honey Bunny and Citadel: Diana after one season each. Vernon Sanders, the studio's head of television, said that "having successfully traversed India and Italy, storylines from both Citadel: Honey Bunny and Citadel: Diana will be woven into the upcoming second season of the mothership series Citadel," which was slated to premiere in the second quarter of 2026.⁷

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026