Prime Video on Tuesday unveiled a 69-title slate of returning and new series as well as original and licensed films for the rest of 2024. The slate was revealed at an event in Mumbai at an all-star event hosted by filmmaker and talk show host Karan Johar.
The streamer is rolling out 27 original Indian web series including the much-anticipated Indian installment of the Russo brothers' Citadel Universe, Citadel: Honey Bunny, starring Varun Dhawan and Samantha Ruth Prabhu, from The Family Man duo Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK. The duo also have a satirical comedy-drama Gulkanda Tales on the Prime Video slate.
Other highlights are Siddharth Roy Kapur and Nagraj Manjule's Matka King, starring Vijay Varma, who plays a Mumbai cotton merchant who ensures that gambling doesn't remain confined only to the elite by inventing 'matka'.
The returning series will include Mirzapur 3, where we'll see Pankaj Tripathi, Ali Fazal, Vijay Verma and Shweta 'Golu' Tripathi, Paatal Lok, with Jaideep Ahlawat playing the bumbling Inspector Hathiram Chowdhary, and Panchayat, where Jitendra Kumar can be seen with Raghubir Yadav and Neena Gupta.
The musical series Bandish Bandits 2 and Suzhal - The Vortex 2, in Tamil, whose gripping first season followed a crime investigation and its dark consequences.
Among the newcomers, the titles that promise to be binge-worthy include the alcohol startup story, Daring Partners, starring Tamannaah Bhatia, Diana Penty and Jaaved Jaaferi; Uorfi Javed's unscripted show, Follow Karlo Yaar; Zoya Akhtar, Reema Kagti and Ayesha Sood's In Transit, a documentary series that explores the lives of trans and non-binary individuals; The Great Indian Code which looks at the birth of the software industry in India; and Nikkhil Advani's adaptation of Sanjeev Sanyal's book, The Revolutionaries, based on the lives and sacrifices of our freedom fighters.
Among the Amazon original films in Hindi are Anil Kapoor's action drama Subedar; Boman Irani's directorial debut, The Mehta Boys; the small-town comedy Supermen of Malegaon from Ritesh Sidhwani, Zoya Akhtar, Reema Kagti and Farhan Akhtar, with Adarsh Gaurav playing the lead character; the Usha Mehta biopic Ae Watan Mere Watan, featuring Sara Ali Khan; the Abhishek Bachchan-starrer Be Happy; and the superstition-themed Chhorii 2.
With all this and more, Amazon Prime Video is looking at countering Netflix's slate of original programming. Mike Hopkins, Head of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, offered a peek into the streamer's global game plan when he told Johar (as reported by Variety): "As we look at the next 250 million subscribers that we're going to acquire, they are definitely going to come from outside of the US. And we're not going to be able to achieve that unless we do a really good job for customers in India as well. So obviously, India is a key geographic area for us."
(With IANS inputs)
