Last month, Netflix announced 10 new original Indian films, set to be released over the next 18 months. These included a Dibakar Banerjee project, Freedom , as well as the Shah Rukh Khan/Red Chillies-produced Class of 83 . Alongside returning shows like Sacred Games and the upcoming Deepa Mehta-directed drama Leila , this is Netflix India’s biggest play yet — further confirmation of the growing influence OTT platforms are wielding on India’s entertainment industry. The stakes are getting higher and if you’re a creator, this is the perfect moment to pitch that dream project.
As a Netflix representative told Weekend , “For us, the greenlighting process starts with storytellers with a really passionate vision, and we look for their ability to execute against that. We want to work with amazing storytellers; this could be a great director with incredible success or a young writer with a story that’s never been told before.”
Democratising storytelling
OTT is fast becoming “the new TV” — but with bigger budgets, bolder programming and better filmmaking. “The platforms are looking for stories for single viewer experiences, so the themes tend to be edgy,” says Ajay Bhuyan (director of the Arre series A.I.SHA , whose new project with comedian Vir Das will hit Prime Video soon). “They also want content that appeals to an international audience. Shows like Delhi Crime (Netflix), although very Indian at heart, can be watched anywhere in the world.”
- “It depends on the scale of the show,” says director Ajay Bhuyan. “For example, Sacred Games (Netflix) would be [around] ₹3-₹4 crore an episode, Made in Heaven (Prime Video) ₹1 crore. ALTBalaji usually gives ₹30-₹50 lakh an episode.”
The biggest difference it is making, however, is for the storytellers. Huma Qureshi, who plays the protagonist in Leila , says, “I think the new players entering the market have made storytelling so democratic. The Hindi film industry is realising that consumers crave strong, versatile content which traditional studios don’t find ‘box-office friendly’.” Arjun Mathur, one of the leads in the recent Amazon Prime Video show Made in Heaven , concurs, adding that streaming’s growing popularity means good news for small, independent films. “The way the distribution systems work in India, the smaller films get the worst show timings, the worst theatres. In the last five years or so, that’s definitely changed.” Mathur mentions how in the pre-streaming era, he’d starred in an MTV series called Bring on the Night (2012), alongside Patrick Graham (who directed the mini-series Ghoul last year and is part of the writing team on Leila ). “When the show was released, it had a small but solid following. Today there’s maybe one or two episodes on YouTube; you can’t find the rest.”
By the book
Among other things, the push for promising new stories has meant a slew of new literary adaptations — apart from Sacred Games and Leila , there’s also the upcoming series Bard of Blood , based on Bilal Siddiqui’s spy thriller of the same name, plus Sudhir Mishra’s adaptation of Manu Joseph’s 2010 novel Serious Men . According to Bhuyan, who is currently shooting The Ruskin Bond Horror Show (based on the Mussoorie-based author’s short stories), “Adaptations are a big trend right now — since books have an audience. There’s also the financial side of it. Typically, you can spend anywhere between six months to a year writing a series, whereas a book is easier to develop. And since platforms are under pressure to put out a certain number of shows every year, they’d rather not spend [additional] time developing them; they’d rather get readymade sources.”
- Excel, Anil Kapoor Productions, Clean Slate, Pritish Nandy Communications
The homegrown platforms Bhuyan speaks about include Hotstar, ALTBalaji, SonyLiv, Voot, Zee5, among others. To various degrees, these have tried to develop signature content — Hotstar, for example, has pretty much cornered the market for Indian sports fans, with its roster of premier cricket and football leagues around the world. Voot has released off-kilter shows striving for realism, like the Swara Bhaskar-created drama It’s Not That Simple , and Bad Man , starring Gulshan Grover. ALTBalaji has, on the one hand, invested in less-than-subtle erotica like Dev DD and XXX , while also producing decidedly more ambitious shows like Vinay Waikul and Nagesh Kukunoor’s The Test Case (starring Nimrat Kaur) and the Rajkummar Rao-starrer Bose: Dead or Alive? . Nachiket Pantvaidya, CEO of Alt Balaji, explains this strategy: “For women aged 18-40, we have dramas such as Kehne Ko Humsafar Hain, Haqq Se and Baarish. For the under-served (Indian) male audiences between 18-40, who only have cricket on digital platforms, we offer unique content like Apharan, Ragini MMS, Gandii Baat and so on. Shows such as The Test Case and Bose: Dead vs Alive are for the third segment, the urban Indian and international audiences.
The Disney threat
There’s also a different kind of player in this ecosystem — folks like Golden Karavan (who produced the recent Netflix cop drama Delhi Crime ). These companies produce original content tailored for the Indian streaming market. Pooja Kohli, Producing Partner at Golden Karavan, says, “Digital streaming opened a new world of content for our audiences in December 2012. Since then, international platforms like Netflix and Amazon have made India their next priority. Local platforms have also been quick to understand that this is where future eyeballs belong, and that they’ll be successful [in India] if they can understand niche audience tastes and viewing patterns.”
Meanwhile, the biggest challenge all of these players will have to prepare for, and soon, is mega-corporations like Apple and Disney entering the streaming fray. These are rivals with deep pockets and a history of analysing consumer behaviour. Disney, in particular, owns Marvel, Lucasfilm and Pixar, to name just three blue chip entertainment entities. When it launches its own streaming service, Disney+, later this year, it will effectively mean that Netflix et al will have to pour in more money and resources, just to counter the exodus programming.
For now, the market leaders have put on their game faces. As a Netflix spokesperson tells us, “We’re excited to compete; we believe the clear beneficiaries will be content creators and consumers who will reap the rewards of many companies vying to provide a great video experience.” One can argue whether this optimism about the market is justified or not, but the global jostle over eyeballs has made one thing clear — Indian audiences are in for an exciting ride over the next few years.
— With inputs from Surya Praphulla Kumar
Applause for bingeingWith over 20 shows lined up for the year, content studio Applause Entertainment is always on the lookout for new and original ideas. Their approach is multi-pronged. They encourage pitches from storytellers, source international material (English, Israeli, Scandinavian and Korean shows, among others), and buy the rights to books (they’ve acquired Shiv Aroor and Rahul Singh’s India’s Most Fearless and Sucheta Dalal’s, The Scam ). “What we’re looking for are stories with deep, layered plots; strong, grey characters; and opportunities to go into multiple seasons,” explains Sameer Nair, CEO of Applause Entertainment, adding that while most pitches come from Mumbai and the North (Hindi tends to be the strongest market), regional markets like Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Bengali are slowly picking up. The studio has produced three Tamil crime dramas this year that are awaiting release. One of the challenges they face is helping a generation of writers, producers and directors move away from the daily soap and movie formats. “The 10-part premium narrative drama, with multiple layers and seasons, is something we don’t have experience with. So it is a learning process,” says Nair. However, what is exciting is that the format allows programming for a mass of niches, rather than the lowest common denominator (as was done with television). “These niches in a country like ours, with 1.2 billion population, is pretty large. So if you say that 50 million people love crime, that’s a big number. And we have many such giant niches.” While crime is the most popular genre, he says romance, drama, thrillers and comedy are close behind. For now, their original political drama, Mayanagri - City of Dreams , directed by Nagesh Kukunoor, has dropped on Hotstar on Thursday evening. That’s your weekend sorted! |
- Vijay Subramaniam
Director and Head, Content, Amazon Prime Video India
With Prime Video, we'd like to give talented creators and actors an opportunity to break fresh ground and tell new stories. Made in Heaven is a special project, a mix of social commentary and critique. It offers the best of both worlds — an epic, visually-appealing production that is also a touching narrative tackling hard-hitting issues
- Ajay Bhuyan
Director
Actors are the prerogative of production houses; they have an existing relationship and can get them for a lower cost. Radhika Apte appeared on shows produced by the erstwhile Phantom for Netflix, while Kalki Koechlin works for Excel
- Sameer Nair
CEO, Applause Entertainment
OTT platforms allows programming for a mass of niches, as compared to creating content for a lowest common denominator. These niches in a country like ours, with 1.2 billion population, is pretty large niches. Audiences are looking for drama, romance, comedy and political thrillers — and OTT and premium fiction storytelling is creating an appetite for this kind of content, and consumption
- Nachiket Pantvaidya
CEO of Alt Balaji
For the under-served (Indian) male audiences between 18-40, who only have cricket on digital platforms, we offer unique content like Apharan, Ragini MMS, Gandii Baat and so on
- Pooja Kohli
Producing Partner at Golden Karavan
Local platforms have also been quick to understand that this is where future eyeballs belong, and that they'll be successful [in India] if they can understand niche audience tastes and viewing patterns
