2023 was a remarkable year for the Indian OTT space. Yes, there were multiple changes and the biggest one was undoubtedly the phenomenon we call JioCinema. But, you must have seen the changing perspectives of Indians towards documentaries.
Let’s go back a few years before we begin with OTT. Sachin Tendulkar has been India’s biggest pride and joy in a game as big as Cricketer. The man is literally worshiped as a God and he released a documentary on his journey on the big screens. Obviously, the concept of OTT was not popular those days in 2017 and the movie failed to do anything insignificant.
Why? Indians were not ready for a documentary.
Fast forward to 2021, House of Secrets: The Burari Deaths creates rage on Netflix. It received tremendous success but people did not receive all upcoming docus the same way. Even though Netflix made a decent documentary series in their “Indian Predator” franchise, the response remained okay.
But last year, two documentaries brought big scale, glamor, and thrill to the genre. “The Hunt For Veerappan” and “Curry and Cyanide The Jolly Joseph Case” were some enormously successful documentaries.
Even on Prime Video, Dancing On Grave, and some other stuff got released but barely caught any attention.
To sum up, Netflix is indeed leading this phenomenon of original crime documentaries. The promising trailer of a case, as inflammable and large as Indrani Mukerjea is only here to elevate the buzz.
It is high time other platforms learn from Netflix and start making good original documentaries.