How Tamil Originals Are Scripting Success Stories for Indian Streaming Platforms

A couple and their young daughter are stranded in a village swarming with bloodthirsty mutants.

The investigation into the case of a missing girl leads to the unravelling of a fictional Tamil Nadu town.

A visually-impaired inspector is stationed  at a forest haunted by a murderous ghost.

These are synopses of Amazon Prime Video’s Tamil original shows The Village, Suzhal: The Vortex and Inspector Rishi. Tamil is one of India’s major languages, spoken by more than 60 million of its billion-plus population. Despite this, however, shows set in the country’s heartland, featuring domestic actors fighting mutants or ghosts are rare.

A still from 'Inspector Rishi'.

The first season of Suzhal released in June 2022, to rave reviews. “The universal nature of the narrative and its emotions appealed to audiences in India and around the world,” said Nikhil Madhok, Head of Originals, Prime Video, India.

The investigative thriller’s next season is likely to be released early in 2025. “This is  a guess based on conversations about the show and the way it’s shaping up,” said Pushkar AKS (of Pushkar-Gayatri, the show’s creators).

The new season of Inspector Rishi is also currently being scripted, according to two people close to the development.

The renewal of a streaming show, especially in the current entertainment climate, is nothing short of miraculous.

Playing the streaming game

Since last year, Netflix, Amazon and The Walt Disney Company have been under pressure to prioritise profitability. During the COVID-19 years, platforms focused on increasing subscription, spending millions of dollars to commission and acquire content, which however did not necessarily lead to enough paid subscribers. This led to those series and movies then being axed, which also took a toll on the Indian entertainment ecosystem.

Over a dozen filmmakers who have worked with streaming or OTT (over the top) platforms, as it is referred to in India, say that the content commissioning process has become tedious and time-consuming, compared to the pace at which it progressed during the lockdown. Most streamers prefer show bibles — a reference document containing characters, episode outlines and plotlines — over films, with fewer cash-guzzling genres progressing from the scripting stage to production.

“A show gets a new season probably because it led to paid subscribers or increased engagement,” says Nandhini JS, creator of Inspector Rishi. The crime-horror drama also became Prime Video India’s most-watched Tamil Original, gaining a substantial part of its viewership from outside Tamil Nadu, says Madhok.

Writer-director Nandhini had originally developed the concept for Inspector Rishi in 2010 as her second feature film. It was relegated to the backburner, however, owing to a lack of funds. But when Amazon Prime Video started looking for scripts to greenlight for its Tamil slate, Nandhini started reworking the story. “Except for the premise, I changed almost everything, including the characters so that it suited a long format,” she added.

Similarly, The Village’s writer-director Milind Rau had initially thought of adapting the graphic novel it was based on, for the big screen. Soon, however, he realised the challenges of making a mainstream Tamil film about an abandoned village.

“The kind of sets, makeup, costumes and computer-generated effects for a film like this would need a good amount of funding,” says Rau, who earlier used to assist Mani Ratnam.

Hiring mainstream actors would have led the production budget to balloon. “But when you’re making a show for a streaming platform, it’s not necessary to feature prominent actors,” he adds.

Similarly, Pushkar and Gayatri S had been developing Suzhal for at least four years when they realised that a two-three-hour film would not have done it justice. When it got greenlit in 2019, the two became showrunners.

Gayatri S and Pushkar.

The upcoming second season is also the fastest script they have ever completed, they claim. “From the story to the episode outline, we were done with Suzhal S2  in about four months,” says Gayatri.

As the show went into production, it also boosted the duo’s production house Wallwatcher Films, which produces shows and develops story ideas into pitch bibles to be presented to digital platforms.

They also produced Vadhandhi: The Fable of Velonie — created by Andrew Louis, and starring S. J. Suryah — and are co-writing filmmaker Farhan Akhtar’s upcoming thriller Don 3: The Final Chapter.

Rau also plans to work with newer writers on story development and show creation, while also looking to work as a showrunner, and direct a film for theatrical release. “Why should I limit myself to a particular medium?” he says.

Steadily growing opportunities

Most top streaming platforms’ homepages feature Hindi shows and movies, with not much screen space dedicated to content in other Indian languages.

The commissioning of Tamil original shows, however, has been rising gradually since 2017, when Alt Balaji (now known as Altt) and Disney+ Hotstar released Maya Thirrai and As I'm Suffering from Kadhal. In 2019, close to Tamil 12 shows were released across SonyLIV, Zee5 and MX Player (acquired by Amazon). Aha, a Tamil and Telugu content platform was founded in 2020.

In 2022, at the height of lockdown binge-watching, 23 Tamil shows were released across top streaming platforms.

Facing South

In 2023, only 16 original Tamil streaming shows were released. Even so, interest in creating South Indian-language shows has not waned.

“SonyLIV will launch more than five Tamil shows in 2025,” says Saugata Mukherjee, head of content.

Streaming platforms have also been creating original shows in Malayalam and Telugu. 

SonyLIV released Brinda, a Telugu thriller show featuring Trisha Krishnan, in August, and Amazon Prime Video released Richie Mehta’s Malayalam show Poacher in February. The platform did not respond to queries about whether it would develop more Malayalam shows.

A still from 'Brinda'.

Disney+ Hotstar also released multiple Tamil originals, including Chutney Sambar and My Perfectt Husband, under Hotstar Specials in 2024. But why the sudden interest in content in South Indian languages when the market for a Hindi-speaking audience is larger?

“Our non-Hindi language slate has also led to viewers becoming paid subscribers,” says SonyLIV’s Mukherjee.

Even theatrically, barring Stree 2, some of India’s highest grossing movies this year include Kalki 2898 AD, originally made in Telugu, The Greatest of All Time (Tamil) and Manjummel Boys (Malayalam).

Most top streaming platforms, including Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+ Hotstar, try to increase their pan-Indian viewership by showcasing content in at least Hindi, Tamil and Telugu, among other Indian and international languages.

With dubbing and subtitling in multiple languages becoming more mainstream, a good review lets movies or shows fly across continents. “In long-form shows, it is all about characters and emotions; I develop characters based on people I meet and find interesting. If you get that right then the show will work across languages,” concludes Nandhini.