After commissioning two fictional series, Netflix is venturing into Hindi film production. Love Per Square Foot, a Mumbai-set drama starring Vicky Kaushal and Angira Dhar (Bang Baja Baarat) and produced by Ronnie Screwvala’s production company RSVP, will be released worldwide on the streaming platform in 2018.
According to a press release, the movie also stars Ratna Pathak, Supriya Pathak and Raghubir Yadav, and is about a man and a woman who enter a marriage of convenience in order to be rent an apartment in space-starved Mumbai. “Our younger audiences chose their mediums,” Screwvala said in the press release. “We love to disrupt and innovate in this space and this is a first of its kind for South Asia. We are thrilled to come together with Netflix and break new ground by reaching film-lovers around the world directly with Netflix.”
Apart from an adaptation of Vikram Chandra’s novel Sacred Games, Netflix has announced a collaboration with Shah Rukh Khan’s company Red Chillies Entertainment for an eight-part original series based on Bilal Siddiqi’s 2015 novel The Bard of Blood.
Competing streaming service Amazon is not far behind. After its first original Indian web series Inside Edge, Amazon Prime Video recently announced a collaboration with comedy collective All India Bakchod to produce The Ministry, a satirical web series starring Irrfan Khan. Other upcoming series include The Family Man by Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK, and projects by Phantom Films, Excel Entertainment and Monsoon Shootout director Amit Kumar.
Amazon has also clinched a deal with production houses such as Yash Raj Films, Dharma Productions and T-Series to launch Amazon Prime Music service in India.