OTTs have democratised filmmaking, transformed storytelling

Actor Saif Ali Khan and Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos during a conversation at the WAVES 2025, in Mumbai, Saturday, May 3, 2025
| Photo Credit:
SHASHANK PARADE

Indian film actor Saif Ali Khan made his OTT debut on the Netflix series ‘Sacred Games’ back in 2018, at a time when the streaming platform was finding its feet in India. Since then Khan’s association with Netflix has grown and after the political drama ‘Tandav’ in 2021, Khan is back on Netflix with the heist action movie ‘Jewel Thief’, while there is another unnamed venture in the works.

Netflix’s co-Chief Executive Officer Ted Sarandos feels that streaming platforms have democratised filmmaking. He said that post-Covid Netflix has invested $2 billion in India.

At the World Audio Visual & Entertainment Summit, Sarandos and Khan took to the stage to talk about the dynamic shift in content creation and consumption.

Edited excerpts from the chat:

Ted Sarandos: We have been operating in India now for nine years, but you know we took our big swing seven years ago with ‘Sacred Games.’ And you took that swing with us, which we will be forever grateful for. I knew that when we came to India, it would be a very important part of our journey, because what we found with ‘Sacred Games’ is that great stories could transcend borders, language, culture and really talk to the world. I am just so endlessly thrilled to work with you and work with the creative community in India all the time.

Saif Ali Khan: Thank you, that’s very kind of you. ‘Sacred Games’ is one of the most special things I’ve ever done on film and will always be very, very close to my heart. Netflix has completely transformed the way we experience stories. I still remember a time when watching a film was kind of fighting for a cinema ticket, managing to get it somehow, standing in the queues. There were single-screen theatres. That was the only outlet at the time. Today, with just a tap, people have unlimited choices. On tablets, phones, massive screens and a multiplex right around the corner. You’ve been right at the heart of this revolution. Could you tell me two things? Number one, what is the world watching right now? And even more importantly, where do you see storytelling headed over the next 20 years?

Sarandos: Well, what’s great is the world is watching their favourite show and film on Netflix all over the world, and it’s very rarely the same thing. Every once in a while, something will really catch fire where people not only want to watch it everywhere in the world, but they want to talk about it. Something like Adolescence right now from the UK is an example of that, where you tap into a story that feels very, very local and very, very relevant almost anywhere you are in the world. We get the pleasure of doing that with stories that could be either very British, like Adolescence or Heeramandi, which would be obviously quite Indian and still travel the entire world. And I think that has been kind of the new dynamic.

20 years is a long time to predict for. I wouldn’t have been able to predict, I think, even where we sit today from seven years ago when we first started here. But I think the impact of streaming is really about meeting the audience where they are. And if you are in the business of bringing entertainment to people, film or television, or if you are in the business of creating that, I think your first thought should be, how do I please this audience? How do I get them to where they are?

I think the other thing that’s been really hard to predict but incredibly impactful is our production in local storytelling. That’s, again, started with ‘Sacred Game’ seven years ago. But since 2021 through 2024, so after COVID, when things got back to normal, we’ve invested in India in a way that has created $2 billion of economic impact from our productions. So 20,000 cast and crew jobs from our productions in India, and we think what people are watching around the world, last year, about 3 billion hours of Indian content on Netflix around the world. So about 60 million hours a week. Last year, every week of last year, there was a title from India in the global top ten.

In those productions, we’ve done 150 original films and series and we have filmed in 90 different cities around India.

Do you mind if I ask you a question? So when you took a very big swing with us, we had not proved ourselves at all in India. We were very exotic, I think, when we got here first. As an actor, how has your world changed with streaming and cinematic television since Sacred Games?

Khan: It’s been the most liberating thing and the most amazing thing for all actors all over the world. Earlier, we had to fit into specific boxes. There was a formula, a look, a style for the kind of thing you had to do. Today, thanks to streaming, we can explore characters in a very different way and go into much more depth. For artists, streaming is like this massive creative playground with no boundaries. It is a creative revolution. Streaming has been a true disruptor. The pace, the access, the reach is mind-blowing. Is there any way to really measure how big this impact has been globally and especially in India?

Sarandos: India has a great cinema culture. People love to go to the films, like to watch movies on TV, like to talk about cinema. What streaming has done is kind of got to the audience where they were. If you want to watch a movie, I want to be able to deliver it to you. And sometimes it’s not convenient, sometimes it’s not affordable. Sometimes there’s no way to see it. What streaming has done, I think, is met the audience where they were, focused on entertaining. I’m more concerned that people keep watching movies and that this is a business model that people can keep making movies.

So in the US, average person sees two movies a year in the cinema….two movies all year. And they watch seven movies a month on Netflix. So this is a business model and a distribution system that will enable film-making forever.

Khan: What is your message for Indian creators who aim for their content to be taken globally?

Sarandos: I think the most interesting thing is, if you try to engineer something to be global, you are making it for nobody. The things that have proven to be the most global, the things that have traveled, that have been watched the most outside of its country of origin, have been the things that have been the most locally authentic. So nothing will work outside of India, if it isn’t loved in India.

So don’t try to water it down or try to amalgamate this, reverse engineer that into what a movie is supposed to look like to the world. Because I don’t think people even think that they would just recognize that world you’ve created. So what they will recognize is that India which is quite local to them.

Published on May 3, 2025

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