In a fiercely competitive and growing market, Netflix has had the advantage of diversity in content, global reach and an user-friendly interface, among other strengths. With the year gone by throwing up many winners for the streaming giant in terms of its film content, The Telegraph spoke to Pratiksha Rao, director, films and licensing, Netflix India, to gauge what constitutes the success story.
The thriller genre has been reaping dividends for Netflix over the last year or so. How much has that informed the choices you are making for the platform now and in the future?
The reason why some of the thrillers worked for us is that the stories were very strong. Both Guilty (in early 2020) and Raat Akeli Hai (in mid-2020) dealt with female-forward subjects. Thriller becomes the device to tell different stories. A good thriller is gripping and hence the viewer wants to stay till the end and see what happens. In that sense, it can really hook you. But our attempt, even when we are putting out a natural crowd-puller like a thriller, is that what is the theme, what is really the story and what the movie is trying to say. That has to resonate strongly with the audience. You also need strong emotions because why should they care about those characters?
Yes, the thriller genre does incite a lot more excitement among the audience. And hence, we are coming up with a lot more thrillers on the service. But our goal is always to make sure that there is a very strong theme and a very strong emotion that will make the audience care for the characters, beyond the genre. Even when we talk to our partners, writers, we ask them what is it that they are first excited about, and then we try and figure out what’s the best way to tell that story. Is it better told through a thriller format or will it work better as a comedy? We don’t tell them, ‘Please send us a few thrillers!’ (Laughs) That’s the process we follow. But yes, you are right... there have been quite a few thrillers recently that have worked for us.
A story we had done a few months ago told us that the pandemic had pushed viewers to consume more feel-good content, along with edgy, thrilling stories. Have the changing viewing patterns during the pandemic over the last two years completely changed your blueprint for the kind of titles you are looking to stream, or only added to it?
The one thing that the pandemic has shown us that if it’s a good story, it will work. You are right that there may be this perception that since there is a lot of doom and gloom around, everyone is leaning towards making and acquiring more happy content. But then, look at Squid Game and how well it’s done. It’s a story that isn’t feel-good for the most part. We are looking at a lot of diversity in our titles. If you want to watch a laugh riot, we should be able to bring that emotion to you. Or if you want a deep-dive into a murder mystery, we should be able to satisfy that need as well. Our goal is to be diverse and bring in good storytelling.
Korean content has really taken off....
Their content, whatever the genre, is very high on emotions, and that’s really hooked audiences. They are set in a different world, their stories are different, they look different from us... but there is something about the emotionality of their stories that works globally. Whether it’s a Squid Game or some of their more traditional dramas around romance. If a title has good storytelling, it will attract an audience, irrespective of age or genre.
Netflix is increasingly focusing on no-formula film-making. Can you elaborate on that?
If you look at a film like Raat Akeli Hai (starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Radhika Apte), it’s pretty long and people tend to think that thrillers need to be fast-paced, short in duration, not longer than perhaps 90 minutes.... But Raat Akeli Hai defies all that logic. It did extremely well for our service because it has a great story and such powerful performances. And that, essentially, is the formula. The truth is that the next best story is yet to be written or yet to be made. There is a certain basic science to screenplay writing or story writing... you have a second and third act, you have to make sure your characters evoke certain emotions, they are authentic... all those basic principles are there. But you can’t fit a film in a formula anymore.
Haseen Dillruba have been some of the winners for Netflix, in the film category, in 2021
What are the factors that come into play when you greenlight a film for Netflix? How much does instinct play a part?
We do use certain learnings from the other titles we have had on the service to understand why a particular film worked. We keep building on these learnings. Yes, a lot of it is also instinct because you see it on paper and you have to imagine how it will come to life. You can never be 100 per cent sure that something will work. But we try and minimise that by ensuring that our first focus is on the story. We spend a lot of time working on it on paper. We spend a lot of time with the directors to understand their vision.
Some stories are one-of-a-kind and are perhaps completely different from anything we have greenlighted before, and so we allow the creative instinct to take over in that case, and we see how the audiences react to it.
In a growing and highly competitive industry, what are Netflix India’s core strengths when it comes to films?
As far as Netflix original films are concerned, we took a bet on it very early. We have a lot of data and we know what people are responding to. Diversity of titles works for us and we don’t chase a certain kind of film and that makes a lot of writers and directors approach us with their stories. Being a global platform, every storyteller wants to reach us because of the huge audience we cater to. Even during the production phase of a project, we work in a very collaborative manner with the makers and because we have been in the market for a while, we have a lot of robust teams for support. We also work with a lot of first-time film-makers, and we will continue to keep taking those bets. We are always open to collaborating with anyone who has a good story.
