After a punishing four-year stretch in distribution purgatory, the thriller Pooja Meri Jaan is finally seeing the light of day. Starring Mrunal Thakur and Huma Qureshi, the long-delayed cybercrime film has been officially rescued by ZEE5. The streaming platform just unveiled the movie as part of its upcoming Hindi content slate, signaling the end of a chaotic behind-the-scenes battle that left the finished project completely shelved since late 2022.
Directed by Navjot Gulati and backed by Dinesh Vijan’s Maddock Films, the thriller tackles the dark realities of digital stalking. But the off-screen drama has been just as tense as the plot. The film was originally commissioned as a direct-to-digital release for JioCinema. That plan completely evaporated when the JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar merger sent shockwaves through the industry, leaving smaller projects orphaned while executives restructured.
As the merger dust settled, the film became trapped in a protracted pricing dispute. Maddock Films struggled to offload the movie to a new buyer, leading to a nearly four-year limbo that infuriated the creative team. While bigger cinematic universes got prioritized, this smaller-scale project starring Vikram Singh Chauhan and Vijay Raaz sat untouched on a hard drive.
The fallout from the Disney+ Hotstar merger forced ZEE5 to eventually swoop in and secure the rights for their upcoming lineup. But the resolution comes after significant emotional collateral damage. Earlier in 2026, director Navjot Gulati reached a breaking point and took his grievances public. He criticized Maddock Films and co-producer Amar Kaushik directly, stating that price negotiations had deliberately stalled for nine months due to a lack of accountability from the top brass.
Gulati pointed out that the studio’s obsession with sprawling franchise films left standalone projects bleeding out in the stalled negotiations. The delay carried a heavy personal cost for the filmmaker. Gulati revealed that his father passed away in 2024, tragically missing the chance to ever see his son’s completed work. Now that ZEE5 has officially added the movie to its roster, Thakur and Qureshi fans will finally get to see the cyber-thriller that survived one of the most frustrating distribution logjams in recent streaming history.