Earlier this week, we witnessed the Queen making her entrance in the world of reality television with ‘Lock Upp’. Yes, Kangana Ranaut, the Queen of Bollywood as she is popularly known, made her debut on OTT as the host of the show. But we are talking about the original Queen of Indian Television, Ekta Kapoor.
Lock Upp is a fresh Indian reality television series produced by Ekta Kapoor and hosted by Kangana Ranaut. Sixteen “controversial” celebrities are locked up for 72 days, stripped of all amenities.
Ekta Kapoor is one of the most successful producers in the Indian television industry. Her production house has a presence across TV, movies and OTT. She began her career at the age of 19 as a producer of tv shows under her banner Balaji Telefilms. She is apparently responsible for creating and producing more than 130 soap operas. In 2001, she created Balaji Motion Pictures with the studio producing Bollywood movies. In 2017, she set up a streaming platform Alt Balaji.
However, in more than 2 decades of producing shows and movies, this is her first major reality tv show. Ekta Kapoor fans have the same expectation of success from Lock Upp as her past endeavors.
So, how has she made this show stand out and does it live up to the high benchmarks set by her earlier work? Well, given her past success, she surely knows what ticks amongst the audiences. Involving ‘controversial’ celebrities and an ace star such as Kangana Ranaut as host meant the show was off on a strong footing. The show also has roped in guest stars as ‘Jailor’. Karan Kundra has, currently, entered the show as a jailor. Lock Upp has already created a new benchmark with 15 million views in the first 48 hours for any reality show on OTT.
In parallel, AltBalaji has launched a fantasy based first-of-its-kind metaverse game for the show. In the metaverse game, an ecosystem would be created that allows players to be a part of the game and participate in the reality show. This will help audiences remain engaged with the show.
With Ekta Kapoor and team working behind the scenes, we can be sure to expect further fireworks from the show as it goes on. Catch the show on AltBalaji and MX Player with new episodes dropping every day at 10.30 PM.