Actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who turned into a poster child for Indian streaming with projects like Sacred Games and Serious Men, said that he is ‘scared’ for the fate of the OTT space because the same old ‘money-minded producers are taking control.
He said that these individuals know nothing about great content, and are selling the same content over and over. Nawaz said that hopes people such as these don’t take control of the streaming industry.
He shared to Bollywood Hungama, “Frankly speaking, I feel they had a great start, no doubt, but the problems arise when established producers enter the fray. For them, it’s a business. How Netflix – and other OTTs – helped new directors and actors in India and gave them world recognition, I think it’s important for this to continue. The shifting that is happening now is a little scary. These big producers can only think of business, they don’t have any idea about art.”
Asked why it scares him, Nawaz said, “Because they’ll bring the same old formula that they’ve been repeating for decades. There’s a hero and a heroine and a villain, both the hero and the heroine are good-looking and have zero stories. God forbid those people to enter this arena. That’s my biggest problem; formula. We’ve been doing it for 30-40 years and still aren’t bored of it. This is an example of our intelligence.”
The actor said that he doesn’t object to ‘commercial cinema’, however has no tolerance for ‘fake content-driven films. He portrayed them as ones that have ‘a dadi, a behen, a family, a shaadi’, and said that they use the same formula but pretend to be content-driven.
