“We should not be guided by data to figure out which genres are working”: Gaurav Banerjee, Star India

Hotstar will roll out its next ‘Special’, an espionage thriller, on March 17.

Star India’s video on demand platform Hotstar, which is now a part of The Walt Disney Company, is all set to stream its next ‘Special’ (or what it calls its Originals). Created by renowned filmmaker Neeraj Pandey (of ‘A Wednesday’, ‘Baby’, and ‘MS Dhoni’ fame), espionage thriller ‘Special Ops’ will be available on Hotstar on March 17. Gaurav Banerjee, president and head, Hindi GEC, Star India, calls ‘Special Ops’ a “large scale show”.

Lately, the streaming platforms in India, like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and others, are only willing to punt when there is an established name associated with the series(showrunner). Netflix’s ‘Ghost Stories’ had Karan Johar, Dibakar Banerjee, Zoya Akhtar and Anurag Kashyap as showrunners, Amazon Prime placed its bet on Kabir Khan for his ‘Forgotten Army’. It is emerging as a trend across the premium streaming universe. However, there are only a few of them (showrunners), and, therefore, the cloud of uncertainty - do they actually create the entire series, or simply lend their names.

Banerjee ruled out the latter, at least as far as Hotstar is concerned. However, in an interview with afaqs!, he admitted that he would like to see “newer creative voices to come across.” He spoke about Hotstar’s stint with Specials so far, and the upcoming show. Here are the edited excerpts:

Also Read: “It is exciting to index your work against the best out there and see how you fare”: Neeraj Pandey