4 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Nov 22, 2023 10:12 AM IST
When Warner Bros announced that it wasn’t going to release the completed Batgirl film and was instead going cut losses with a tax write-off, the move was described as unprecedented. The studio had already spent nearly $100 million on the superhero movie. WB did the same thing again recently with the Coyote vs Acme film, and this time, the industry didn’t stay quiet. Faced with growing pressure, the studio allowed the filmmakers to shop Coyote vs Acme around to other interested distributors, instead of letting it sit on a shelf. But decision-making like this has been common in the Indian streaming industry, the Washington Post recently reported.
Streaming platforms such as Netflix and Prime Video ask for extensive changes to be made to stories involving politics, caste, and religion, when they aren’t ‘politely passing’ on the projects altogether. “Why greenlight it, then change your mind?” asked Anurag Kashyap, whose magnum opus three-part adaptation of Suketu Mehta’s Maximum City was abandoned by Netflix, sending him into a depressive spiral.
The same streamer also cancelled all plans to release director Dibakar Banerjee’s completed film Tees, reportedly about a Kashmiri family’s struggles in current day India. Banerjee shot the film in 2020 and delivered it to Netflix last year. After months of non-committal communication, the streamer informed him that it would not be moving forward with the release. “Netflix has never given me any other reason except they don’t know if this is the right time to release the film,” Banerjee told Deadline, adding that he was barred from screening the film at festivals, but has been allowed to show it to potential new buyers.
Also axed by Netflix is director Vikramaditya Motwane’s documentary Indi(r)a’s Emergency, which recently screened at the Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival and the Dharamshala International Film Festival. The Washington Post reported that the streamer invested over $1 million into the project, before getting cold feet about the parallels that it draws to the current regime’s tactics. Netflix has since relinquished the rights to the film.
Coincidentally, each of these three filmmakers was instrumental in launching the streamer in India. Motwane and Kashyap worked together on Sacred Games; Kashyap also worked on the anthology films Lust Stories and Ghost Stories with Banerjee. Netflix responded with this statement: “We have an incredibly broad range of Indian original films and TV shows, all of which speak to our long standing support for creative expression. This diversity not only reflects our members’ very different tastes, it also distinguishes our service from the competition.”
One of the first completed shows to be cancelled before release was the political satire Gormint, which was once set to star the late Irrfan Khan, who was replaced by Manav Kaul. The nine-episode series was shut down following the Tandav controversy, which is seen as a pivotal moment for not just Indian streaming, but the Indian film industry as a whole. A section of the right-wing took offence to certain scenes in the Prime Video show, which resulted in numerous police complaints. The scenes were eventually removed from the show, and apologies widely disseminated. “At Prime Video we take our responsibilities seriously and make our programming decisions thoughtfully,” the Post quoted Prime Video as saying in response.
“It is creative evolution in reverse,” Gormint direct Ayappa KM told the Washington Post. “Only passive, thoroughly sanitised content stands a chance on most platforms now.” “OTT ki aaj ki date mein himmat nahi hai, Tandav ke baad sab dar gaye hain (OTT has lost its spine, everybody is scared after Tandav),” Anurag Kashyap told Mashable recently. “You wanted to make sure that you are not making the same mistakes that happened on Tandav,” a former Netflix employee told the Post.
Netflix launched in India in 2018, with Vikramaditya Motwane's Sacred Games.