Anurag Kashyap has once again expressed his displeasure with Netflix. The actor-filmmaker shared a quote from Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos's conversation with Nikhil Kamath wherein he suggested that he had second thoughts about making Sacred Games Netflix India's first Indian original instead of something more "populist."
Responding to this, Kashyap wrote on his social media handles: "He should have started with Saas Bahu .. he would have done well. Which he is doing now. I always knew the tech guys are dumb when it comes to storytelling but @tedsarandos is the definition of dumb is what I didn’t know. Good to discover that. This explains everything now."
Kashyap, who had previously worked with Netflix on projects like Sacred Games (with Vikramaditya Motwane), Ak vs Ak, Choked, and Lust Stories, has on numerous occasions mentioned how things went South between him and Netflix. In a 2023 interview with The Washington Post, Kashyap had questioned why the streamer cancelled an already greenlit project just days before they were about to start prep. The project in question was Maximum City, based on Suketu Mehta's book of the same name. In the interview, he recalled how the decision took a severe toll on his health. The experience also sent him into a long period of depression and caused two heart attacks.
Kashyap had said, “I wrote Maximum City, spending one and a half years writing the three-part, nine-hour thing. But six days prior to starting our prep, it got shelved and I was told it was not going to happen… Inside, I’ve been dying for the last four to five years. I wanted to make Maximum City, but I couldn’t."
The show was reportedly cancelled after Netflix got cold feet following the backlash that Prime Video got due to the content's nature in their show Tandav, starring Saif Ali Khan.
Kashyap also criticised Netflix in a recent conversation with Ram Gopal Varma on the channel IndiaTV, citing the example of the platform not proceeding with David Fincher's Mindhunter despite being enthusiastic about greenlighting multiple seasons of Fincher's House of Cards.
It must be also noted that Netflix India recently cancelled the series Kaala Pani despite critical acclaim and popularity with viewers and instead greenlit the second season of The Royals, a decision that was met with much ridicule online.
