Regardless of early monsoon rains disrupting manufacturing schedules and a difficult exterior surroundings, Abundantia Leisure CEO Vikram Malhotra stays bullish in regards to the Indian leisure panorama — and his firm’s formidable enlargement plans.
Talking from the units of his newest movie “Ma Behan,” starring Madhuri Dixit and Triptii Dimri, which has been capturing by way of unseasonably heavy rains, Malhotra outlines an aggressive development technique that features worldwide enlargement, vertical content material improvement, and a strategic fundraising initiative to gas the corporate’s three-year roadmap.
“Regardless of the difficult exterior surroundings, we’re staying on observe. We’re staying on the right track, and dare I say, truly enhancing and bettering on the plan that we’ve set for ourselves,” Malhotra tells Selection.
The momentum comes on the heels of a powerful efficiency from “Chhorii 2,” the sequel to Abundantia’s 2021 thriller, which Malhotra says “exceeded its targets” on Prime Video by way of each viewers response and platform efficiency. The success has emboldened the corporate’s franchise-building ambitions, with Malhotra “presently exploring the potential of a continuation” for “Chhorii 3” with director Vishal Furia.
Abundantia’s strong slate spans a number of platforms and codecs. “Subedaar,” an action-drama that includes Anil Kapoor as a former soldier defending his household, is ready for Prime Video launch later this yr, additionally starring Radhikka Madan, Saurabh Shukla, and Aditya Rawal. “Daldal,” a thriller sequence starring Bhumi Pednekar as Mumbai DCP Rita Ferreira investigating a cold-blooded killer, can also be heading to Prime Video. The corporate has launched its first set of Netflix tasks — a movie and sequence that can launch within the first two quarters of 2026.
Extra tasks in improvement embody untitled options from acclaimed administrators Randeep Jha (“Kohrra”), Mayank Sharma (“Breathe”), Hansal Mehta (“Rip-off 1992”), Bhav Dhulia (“The Freelancer”), Palash Vaswani (“Gullak”), and Sandeep Modi (“The Evening Supervisor”). The slate additionally options “Daring,” a youth action-drama directed by Madhumita S. starring Arjun Das. The manufacturing home is doubling down on youth-oriented content material and genre-specific areas like horror and paranormal, with two productions focusing on youthful audiences set to start within the September and December quarters.
The corporate can also be creating a Nirav Modi biopic based mostly on Pavan C. Lall’s guide “Flawed,” in regards to the fugitive diamond service provider who fled India amid allegations of economic misconduct. Malhotra says they’ve “a superb, compelling screenplay in place” and are “presently in casting” for the challenge, which is able to use “a reasonably fascinating narrative type” that’s “totally entertaining mainstream” whereas being “appropriately fictionalized.”
Malhotra’s strategic imaginative and prescient extends past conventional long-form content material into the quickly increasing vertical storytelling market of quick, vertically shot dramas tailor-made for cellular viewing. Citing China’s $7 billion vertical content material market and India’s mobile-first consumption patterns — with 82% of Indian shoppers being mobile-first based on PwC statistics — he sees huge untapped potential.
“The vertical storytelling format market is a very completely different ecosystem,” Malhotra explains. “It’s not simply bite-sized content material, nevertheless it’s additionally low involvement, low engagement content material, which signifies that the filters to accessing and the benchmarks for satisfaction, delight, exhilaration ranges are very completely different.”
The corporate is creating “an in-house ecosystem” able to producing vertical content material at “meeting line degree of functionality” with “low price and excessive frequency.” Malhotra notes that profitable vertical content material genres — romance, romantic drama, tender erotica, and “soapy content material” — are “antithetical to what we’re seeing occur on the streaming on-demand aspect.”
Opposite to Bollywood trade doom-and-gloom narratives, Malhotra maintains an optimistic outlook on theatrical exhibition, pointing to current successes like “Raid 2” and “Bhool Chuk Maaf” as proof that viewers urge for food stays sturdy.
“I’ve at all times maintained that the will to devour movies in theaters was as excessive, if not greater, than ever earlier than. Simply what was being consumed in theaters had developed and altered,” he says. “There isn’t a ground to how badly a movie can carry out. Equally, there isn’t any ceiling to how properly a movie can carry out.”
The important thing shift, based on Malhotra, is that audiences now search both “a superb cinematic expertise the place they’re very clear that they’re seeing one thing that they take pleasure in on the large display” or “a group outing” with household and associates. This has impacted which genres work theatrically, with dramas, thrillers, and mysteries — content material that doesn’t require group viewing — migrating to streaming platforms.
Maybe most ambitiously, Abundantia is making ready for worldwide enlargement with plans to create content material for international audiences past the Indian diaspora. Malhotra envisions establishing “bases westwards” to entry worldwide expertise and create tales with international resonance.
“I’ve at all times believed that India wants to maneuver from being an importer of content material to being an exporter of content material,” he stated. “There’s no motive why India can’t have the subsequent ‘Squid Sport’ or the subsequent ‘Parasite’ or the subsequent ‘Narcos’ or the subsequent ‘Cash Heist.’”
To gas these enlargement plans, Abundantia is actively pursuing a fundraising spherical, evaluating each strategic trade companions and monetary buyers. The corporate at present has a slate price INR5-6 billion ($58-70 million) spanning 2025-2027, with most tasks already hooked up to consumers or platform companions.
“Thankfully, Abundantia is at a scale proper now the place enterprise as ordinary will get taken care of by advantage of the character of our work and credentials,” Malhotra notes. The funding would particularly goal scaling up domestically, worldwide enlargement, and accessing “newer codecs and crossover mediums.”
As Abundantia navigates the evolving leisure panorama, Malhotra’s technique of sustaining artistic high quality whereas increasing into new codecs and markets positions the corporate for continued development regardless of trade headwinds. With a sturdy slate, strategic partnerships, and worldwide ambitions, the manufacturing home is betting huge on content material that travels — whether or not vertically on cellular screens or globally throughout borders.