Amazon’s Prime Video unveils bumper Indian slate featuring 27 new series

Prime Video’s international and local Indian leadership team

Prime Video in India has unveiled a mammoth slate of nearly 70 titles for 2024, including 27 new original series, five returners, eight original movies and almost 30 licensed features.

The slate, which represents the Amazon-owned streamer’s largest ever in India, was revealed as part of a Prime Video Presents India showcase, which was attended by execs including Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios head Mike Hopkins; VP of Prime Video international Kelly Day; VP of international originals ⁠James Farrell; Sushant Sreeram, country director, India; and Aparna Purohit, head of originals for India and South-East Asia.

The Indian iteration of Amazon’s big-budget scripted series Citadel is among the buzziest titles on its upcoming slate. The Hindi-language series, titled Citadel: Honey Bunny and produced by D2R Films Production, takes place in the same universe as Citadel shows in other Prime Video territories and is described as blending the “gritty spy action thriller with the heartwarming allure of a love story.”

It is one of 20 new Hindi-language originals set to debut this year, with others including Andhera (Excel Media), about a fearless cop and a haunted medical student who must embrace the darkness to avert impending doom; Call Me Bae (Dharmatic Entertainment), about an heiress who becomes a hustler in the newsrooms of Mumbai; and crime drama Daldal (Abundantia Entertainment).

There’s also Dupahiya (Bombay Film Cartel), which sees a village thrown into chaos following the theft of a motorbike; docuseries In Transit (Tiger Baby Digital), about the lives of trans and non-binary individuals navigating love, identity and the boundaries of gender in a uniquely Indian way; and 1960s-set drama Matka King (Roy Kapur Films), about an enterprising cotton trader craving legitimacy and respect who starts a new gambling game dubbed Matka.

New Tamil-language shows headed to Prime Video include period action-drama Gangs Kuruthi Punal (May6 Entertainment); supernatural horror series Inspector Rishi (Make Believe Productions); and comedy-drama Thalaivettiyaan Paalayam (The Viral Fever), about an urban engineering graduate who takes a job on the village council due to a lack of other work options.

A trio of new Telegu-language series are also headed to Prime Video in India, among them Arabia Kadali (First Frame Entertainment), a suspense drama about a group of fishermen from rival villages who inadvertently trespass into international waters and find themselves imprisoned in a foreign jail.

Four Hindi series earned renewals: musical romantic drama Bandish Bandits (Leo Collective), crime thriller Mirzapur (Excel Media and Entertainment), investigative thriller Paatal Lok (Clean Slate Filmz) and political drama Panchayat (The Viral Fever). Tamil drama Suzhal – The Vortex (Wallwatcher Films) will also return for a second season.

On the original movie front, Prime Video’s Indian slate features the Hindi film Ae Watan Mere Watan (Dharmatic Entertainment), about a college girl’s transformation into a fearless freedom fighter amid the tumult of the Quit India Movement in 1942, and Telegu-language investigative thriller Cheekati Lo (Suresh Production).

During the showcase event, Hopkins shared some data that illustrates why Amazon is investing so heavily in India and producing so many original titles in the country.

According to Hopkins, Amazon’s Prime services subscription in India has seen more new sign-ups than anywhere else in the world except for the US in recent years. He also claimed that in India, more consumers are signing up specifically to use the Prime Video service than in any other country, and that India boasts the highest percentage of Prime members who also use the Prime Video streaming service.

“As we look at the next 250 million subscribers we’re going to acquire [for Prime], they are definitely going to come from outside of the United States. 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,” he said.

Purohit also pointed to the fact that Amazon’s Indian originals travel well outside of the region as a key reason for the growth of its local slate.

“At Prime Video, it has been our ongoing mission to be a global showcase for diverse, authentic and rooted Indian stories that can transcend linguistic and geographical borders.

“In just 2023, our content was watched in over 210 countries and territories, in any given week, and trended in the top 10 on Prime Video worldwide for 43 of the last 52 weeks. It has been gratifying to witness the national and global impact of our shows and movies, and this fuels us to further champion Indian content on the global stage.”