Anurag Kashyap slammed Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos for calling Sacred Games a misstep, calling him 'the definition of dumb'. Kashyap defended the series and mocked Sarandos’ preference for safer, soap-style content to appeal to Indian audiences
Anurag Kashyap
Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap has slammed Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos’ comment about launching Sacred Games as Netflix India’s first original series. Sacred Games was the first Indian original series ever produced by Netflix. The series, based on the book of the same name by Vikram Chandra, was directed by Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane. It starred Saif Ali Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui.
Anurag Kashyap calls Netflix CEO 'dumb'
Recently, Sarandos stated that the show was not the ideal way to enter the Indian market. Kashyap reacted strongly to Sarandos’ statement and didn’t mince his words while sharing his opinion. He shared a screenshot of an article referencing Sarandos' comment and wrote, “He should have started with Saas-Bahu… he would have done well. Which he is doing now. I always knew the tech guys are dumb when it comes to storytelling, but @tedsarandos is the definition of dumb — that I didn’t know. Good to discover that. This explains everything now.”
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What Ted Sarandos said
In an appearance on Nikhil Kamath’s podcast, Sarandos said that it is difficult to crack into the Indian market, as people in the country are suspicious of subscriptions. Talking about not being able to tap much into the Indian market, he said, “It took us a couple of years to get the product-market fit right. Our very first Indian original show was Sacred Games. And I thought, ‘This is going to be great. People in India love movies. This is a TV show that feels as big as a movie — it has movie stars.’ What’s interesting about it is that it was very, very novel. But what I didn’t understand was that we were introducing a brand new kind of entertainment in a country the size of India.”
He continued, “For me, if I did it all over again, would I have done Sacred Games a couple of years later and done things that were more populist instead? Maybe. But we knew that India was going to be a slower journey to get to where we wanted to be. But it’s a great prize at the end of the day. The addressable market is growing in the next couple of years in India, so it’s exciting.”
Sacred Games was cancelled after two seasons on the platform.
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