On Wednesday, Netflix held a special e-presser and announced the menu of movies and series it will be streaming in 2021, of which 41 titles- including both web series and movies – will be original Indian content.
Netflix is planning to bring back many of the old favorites including Kota Factory, Little Things and Delhi Crime. While the first two had originally streamed on YouTube by TVF, they are returning on Netflix, with Kota Factoryready for its second season and Little Things for its fourth. Other returning titles will also include much loved Masaba Masaba 2, She 2 and Jamtara 2.
Apart from these, Netflix has also promised some new and exciting titles starring all-time favorite Bollywood actors. This list is home to a lot of well-known names such as Madhuri Dixit who will be leading in a new title named Finding Anamika, Manoj Bajpayee in Ray, and Raveena Tandon starring in Arnayak.
Another interesting title that will release this women’s day is Bombay Begums, starring Pooja Bhatt, which will showcase “five ambitious women from various walks of life navigate dreams, desires and disappointment in modern-day Mumbai.” Netflix is also planning to release some comedy specials starring several Indian comedians including Sumukhi Suresh, Aakaash Gupta, Rahul Dua and Prashasti Singh. The video streaming platform also said that a few of these new titles will be produced by India’s Reliance Entertainment, ViaCom18 and Karan Johar’s Dharmatic Entertainment.
India is the second biggest internet market in the world, and it is natural for platforms like Netflix to want to expand in this promising region. According to reports, this year Netflix will be investing triple the amount of money it spent on Indian content in 2019 and 2020 together. Till now, the platform has also had a pretty much smooth sailing, as far as receival of its content is concerned. However this might change according to the new laws for video streaming platforms and other social media firms that have been enacted only recently in Delhi. Due to these, even Amazon had to issue an official apology over its controversial series, Tandav, and Netflix itself had a couple of FIRs filed against it regarding a scene in its show-A Suitable Boy.
This is a big step for Netflix and could go either way. The platform said in one of its post , “Our upcoming line-up features more variety and diversity than we have seen before. From the biggest films and series, to gripping documentaries and reality, and bold comedy formats. We are taking our next big leap in India to bring you more than 40 powerful and irresistible stories from all corners of the country,”
