Adapting a book into a web series is never easy—especially when the book already enjoys a strong emotional connection with its readers. ...
Adapting a book into a web series is never
easy—especially when the book already enjoys a strong emotional connection with
its readers. But director Prashant Singh has done it before with Dehati Ladke,
and with Pyar Paisa aur Profit, he dives back into the world of literary
adaptations and shares that it can be quite challenging.
“After directing Dehati Ladke, which too was an
adaptation, I was excited and a little bit cautious too, as translating a book
onto the screen comes with a great deal of responsibility,” he said.
The web series is based on Durjoy Datta’s 2008
novel, ‘Now That You're Rich... Let's Fall in Love!’ And while the core of the
story has not changed, a few tweaks were made to make it apt for the 2025
audience. “The core of the story—the emotional arc, the characters’ intentions,
the themes—has been kept intact. But we had to update the setting and the
characters to reflect today’s world,” he shared.
He further said, “The way people communicate, their
motivations, their relationships—those dynamics have shifted, so the story
needed to evolve too.”
Durjoy himself was part of the adaptation process,
which made the task easy. Prashant further said, “The book was originally
written in 2008, and naturally, the world has changed a lot since then. The
core of the story—the emotional arc, the characters’ intentions, the themes—has
been kept intact. But we had to update the setting and the characters to
reflect today’s world. The way people communicate, their motivations, their
relationships—those dynamics have shifted, so the story needed to evolve too.”
“Of course, adapting a novel into a visual format
means you can’t keep everything. Some things that work beautifully on the page
just don’t land the same way on screen, so we had to let go of a few bits that
readers may have loved. It was a very collaborative process, though, and the
writers worked really closely with the original material. In fact, they’ve told
me the show is actually a step up over the book—so I’ll take that,” he added.
The journey from script to screen came with its own
challenges, as a “book gives you the luxury to linger—to get inside a
character’s head, to explore little moments.” Prashant added, “But in a show,
you need to keep the story moving while still hitting the emotional beats. The
biggest creative challenge was honestly deciding what to leave out. When you’re
attached to the material, everything feels important. So carving out a clean,
tight narrative that still felt emotionally satisfying was a constant push and
pull.”
And of course the characters, too, evolved with
time. He said, “Every character you see in the show still has the same soul as
they did in the book. But the world around them has changed, and so their
reactions, choices, and circumstances had to evolve too.”
But to maintain the engaging mix of romance,
conflict, and realism, Prashant confessed that they had to restructure or
sharpen to keep the momentum going, especially since attention spans and
storytelling expectations have changed. He added, “But nothing was changed just
for the sake of it; it all came from a place of love and understanding of the
source material.”
And finally, when asked to pick his priority among
Pyar, Paisa, and Profit, he laughed and said, “Profit in both Pyar and Paisa!”
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