MUMBAI: Renowned filmmakers Vikramaditya Motwane and Anurag Kashyap have been commissioned to work on two parallel stories in Netflix's maiden India-set original series 'Sacred Games' based on Vikram Chandra's best-selling novel.
The series, to be produced in partnership with Phantom Films, will be available to Netflix' over 100 million subscribers in over 190 countries. Netflix plans to gradually increase Indian originals following its recent announcements of three projects. Netflix said it was targeting “at least five to six Indian originals a year.” Netflix’s other planned Indian originals are -- Again and Selection Day.
Competitor Amazon Prime announced 18 homegrown originals when the service launched in December, which are at various stages of production. It already premiered its first original -- "Inside Edge."
About 'Sacred Games,' a Netflix executive said: "This is an ambitious storytelling. We have two directors following two different decades of what's happening in the Mumbai crime underworld."
At Jio MAMI, Netflix VP - international original series Erik Barmack said that the series, shot on real locations in Mumbai, will delve into the city's intricate web of organised crime, politics, corruption, and espionage.
At the festival, a few images from the series were unveiled featuring actors Saif Ali Khan and Nawazuddin Siddique. The show sees Khan playing the role of cop Sartaj Singh, while Siddiqui portrays gangster Ganesh Gaitonde. Barmack said that the storytelling format was quite amazing and hoped the show made a mark globally.
Vikramaditya and Anurag will follow two characters. One is on the Gaitonde storyline, the other on Sartaj. They, of course, collide (eventually).
If one thought of the conventional storytelling and where TV was 15 years ago, the idea that you could do these things in different time periods with anti-hero and complex characters was quite amazing, he said.
Netflix would, Barmack said, like to see more Indian talent working on its US productions, as The Lunchbox' Ritesh Batra lead its original film "Our Souls at Night." Netflix also plans to introduce Indian actors in its US productions, such as Sense8 featured Tina Desai in a major role.
