Vikramaditya Motwane reacts to Saif Ali Khan trashing Sacred Games season 2, explains ‘main reason’ it didn’t meet expectations

Motwane continued, “I’ll tell you what happened with Sacred Games was that on season one, we had the luxury of time. We had about a year to write the show before we started shooting. And we took our time, because I wanted to do it without any assistance. I wanted to create a writers’ room, come together, and make it without having to say, ‘Oh, let’s get some firangi to come in and guide us on how to do it’. Netflix kept offering… Now what happened on season two was that we had to turn around in 12 months. So, while I’m in the middle of shooting (season one), there’s already ideas for season two. While I’m doing post-production (on season one) the writing’s already happening (on season two). By the time I’m free to get into it in a deeper way, it’s too late for me to make my presence felt in the way that I want to make it felt.”

Motwane said that this doesn’t mean ‘there’s anything wrong with the writing’, but it just went in a different direction from what he would’ve done. While Motwane also co-directed season one with Anurag Kashyap, he stepped back to focus on showrunning season two, and was replaced by Neeraj Ghaywan. Motwane said that Ghaywan was ‘under-confident’ and ‘overwhelmed’ about stepping into an already established world. But, he said, the ‘main thing’ is that Indian productions aren’t used to a 12 month turnaround.

Kashyap claimed that a third season for the show was supposed to happen, but Netflix chose to not proceed with it. He implied that the changing landscape of streaming might have something to do with it, and pointed towards the backlash directed at Prime Video’s Tandav as being the exact moment when things started to change, and streamers became more cautious about what they green-light.