Abhishek Bahchan’s Ludo, Sanjay Dutt’s Torbaaz and director Mira Nair’s A Suitable Boy are some of the high-profile direct-to-OTT releases coming to Netflix India over the course of the next few months.
The streaming giant has announced a line-up of 17 new offerings — including eight new films and series — which span different genres, and are set to rival the regional content that competitors like Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ Hotstar have been launching on their respective platforms during the COVID-19-induced lockdown in India this year.
“Our exciting lineup of content is across multiple genres and many formats. We are bringing heartfelt dramas, rom coms, thrillers and more, from amazing creators and talent, both established and emerging. We announced these Indian original series and films because our audiences love the dazzling diversity and variety of our stories,” said Monika Shergill, VP — Content, Netflix India.
She added, “As a full scale entertainment service, we want to offer an exciting slate to our members, knowing that each person’s Netflix profile is unique to their taste, mood and need. So whether they love global titles, world cinema, Hindi films or regional Indian language titles, they will discover something they enjoy on any given night.”
While the likes of biopic Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl (Janhvi Kapoor) and the film adaptation of author Manu Joseph’s satire Serious Men (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) had already been announced, several other new premieres are bound to whet the appetite of viewers across the country, who are now increasingly spoilt for choice with the array of established and emerging OTT platforms.
Janhvi Kapoor in ‘Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl’
Dark anthology comedy Ludo, directed by Anurag Basu, and featuring an ensemble cast of A-listers such as Abhishek Bachchan, Rajkummar Rao, Aditya Roy Kapur, Sanya Malhotra, Fatima Sana Shaikh and Pankaj Tripathi will likely be the first big-ticket release.
Fatima Sana Shaikh and Rajkummar Rao in ‘Ludo’
Sanjay Dutt’s action-thriller Torbaaz directed by Girish Malik, crime thriller Raat Akeli Hai that stars Radhika Apte and Nawazuddin Siddiqui and is the directorial debut of Honey Trehan, Alankrita Shrivastava-helmed comedy Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare that revolves around a secret shared by two cousins and their quest for freedom (Konkana Sen Sharma and Bhumi Pednekar), dysfunctional family drama Tribhanga - Tedhi Medhi Crazy (featuring Kajol, Tanvi Azmi and Mithila Palkar) and Gitanjali Rao’s animated Bombay Rose that premiered at TIFF last year and opened Venice Critics’ Week, are some of the new movie premieres to look forward to.
Gitanjali Rao’s ‘Bombay Rose’
Among shows, Mira Nair’s min-series adaptation of Vikram Seth’s acclaimed bestselling novel A Suitable Boy, featuring Ishaan Khatter as the lead Maan Kapoor and Tabu as Saeeda Bai, the courtesan with whom he becomes dangerously infatuated, is the stand-out pick.
Ishaan Khatter and Tabu in ‘A Suitable Boy’
Bombay Begums, the story of five women across generations who balance their desires, ethics and personal lives in a male-dominated society and Mismatched, a young adult romance (starring Prajakta Koli and Rohit Saraf) based on Sandhya Menon’s book When Dimple Met Rishi are other anticipated arrivals.
Also on the list is Masaba Masaba, starring Masaba Gupta and Neena Gupta as themselves, will be a scripted series based on real-life moments from Masaba’s life and her unique background, the diverse worlds she straddles across fashion and family, and her foray back into the dating world.
Several actors, who are part of the cast in the films and series, such as Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Rajkummar Rao, Radhika Apte, Fatima Sana Sheikh among others teased the announcement of the new releases by trending the hashtag #ComeOnNetflix all over social media last evening.
Here is the full list of Indian titles premiering on Netflix:
Films
New titles:
Ludo (featuring Abhishek Bachchan, Aditya Roy Kapur, Rajkummar Rao, Fatima Sana Sheikh, Sanya Malhotra and Pankaj Tripathi) | Comedy, Drama
Torbaaz (starring Sanjay Dutt) | Drama
Raat Akeli Hai (featuring Radhika Apte, Nawazuddin Siddiqui) | Mystery, crime thriller
Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare (starring Konkana Sensharma and Bhumi Pednekar) | Comedy, satire
Ginny Weds Sunny (featuring Yami Gautam, Vikrant Massey) | Romantic comedy
Bombay Rose Award-winning animated film | Romance
Earlier titles that were announced:
Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl (starring Janhvi Kapoor, Pankaj Tripathi, Vineet Kumar and Angad Bedi) | Inspiration, drama
Tribhanga: Tedhi Meri Crazy (featuring Kajol, Tanvi Azmi and Mithila Palkar) | Family drama
Kaali Khuhi (featuring Shabana Azmi, Satyadeep Mishra and Riva Arora) | Horror
Serious Men (starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Nasser, Shweta Basu Prasad) | Witty/funny, character drama
Class of ‘83 (featuring Bobby Deol, Bhupendra Jadawat, Hitesh Malukani and Anoop Soni) | Cop drama
AK vs AK (starring Anil Kapoor and Anurag Kashyap) | Dark comedy
Web series
New titles:
Mismatched (starring Prajakta Koli and Rohit Saraf) based on Sandhya Menon’s book ‘When Dimple met Rishi’ | Romantic Comedy
Prajakta Koli and Rohit Saraf in ‘Mismatched’
A Suitable Boy, based on the critically acclaimed book by Vikram Seth (starring Ishaan Khatter, Tabu and Tanya Maniktala) | Romance
Earlier titles that were announced:
Masaba Masaba (starring Masaba Gupta and Neena Gupta as themselves) | Reality inspired
Bombay Begums (featuring Amruta Subhash, Plabita Borthakur, Aadhya Anand, Pooja Bhatt and Shahana Goswami) | Fictional drama
Bhaag Beanie Bhaag (earlier titled Messy, starring Swara Bhasker and Ravi Patel) | Drama, comedy