Lights, Camera, Scoop: A Storm is Brewing Inside India's OTT Space, And Creators Are Privately Sharing Their Grief

If you’ve walked into any film party over the past few months—particularly the last few weeks—you would’ve noticed a familiar scene: smiles for the cameras, polite chatter over cocktails, and eventually, hushed conversations in trusted circles to share — not gossip — but trauma. Across Mumbai’s creative gatherings, a quiet sense of doom has begun to take hold, where creators are trading horror stories of what appears to be a full-blown crisis in India’s streaming space.

As The Hollywood Reporter India has detailed in recent months, the screenwriters’ crisis was only the beginning. Now, filmmakers across hierarchies—directors, showrunners, even marquee producers—are facing mounting pressure as projects commissioned by OTT platforms reportedly fall apart. Some have been indefinitely postponed, others paused mid-production; a few have been shelved altogether. Several are being reshot or stuck in post-production limbo. And all of it, sources say, comes at a heavy cost.

It may appear that all is well from the gleaming glass towers of India’s streaming high rises, but on the ground, discontent runs deep. Many creators privately admit they are “nursing a silent grudge” and even “plotting" a helpless rebellion.

This unrest has led to something unexpected: solidarity. WhatsApp groups across the filmmaking community are buzzing with accounts of creative interference and abrupt cancellations of projects derailed beyond redemption.

“When a project is paused mid-way or scrapped without warning, the ripple effect is massive,” said a filmmaker on condition of anonymity.

"If the edit is not approved by the streamer, they also do not release payments, which usually happens in tranches, and hence the crew will remain unpaid. If a show is axed last minute, the cast and crew suddenly find empty calendars and are naturally out of work and hence out of pay. And when budgets are slashed mid-shoot, everything collapses. There’s a crisis unfolding, and nobody is happy," echoed the creator.

A senior film executive confirmed the situation as “tense,” citing unprecedented efforts to control the narrative. There’s a clampdown, they said, and alleged pressuring journalists to bury stories about troubled productions. A journalist from another publication shared screenshots showing a platform attempting to suppress such coverage about stories that have been industry open secrets for months.

“It is all coming down to money now,” said a top filmmaker. “Some streamers are pivoting to mid-budget, ‘TV+’ content instead of premium shows. The big-ticket projects greenlit during the boom years are now stuck in limbo.”

There are some concerning allegations as well over how and why some titles are getting axed or commissioned, which THR India couldn’t independently verify as of yet, but the pattern is unmistakable: some of India’s most celebrated storytellers are facing the most uncertain phase of their careers, as the once-golden promise of OTT seemingly begins to wobble.

Appearing on The Streaming Show podcast, actor-filmmaker Konkona Sen Sharma summed up the mood in a single, devastating line, delivered with ease. When asked if her acclaimed feature A Death in the Gunj would be greenlit in today’s ecosystem, she replied, “I guess it wouldn’t get made today because I’ve been hearing there’s no space for small-budget films. (If it were commissioned as a show) it would’ve been cancelled in prep citing it’s too expensive,” she joked. But was she stating facts?