‘Kalki 2898 AD,’ ‘Aarya’ Teams, Siddharth Roy Kapur on India’s 2023: ‘A Collective Euphoria and Catharsis’ (EXCLUSIVE)

variety.com:

Naman Ramachandran The teams behind upcoming sci-fi epic “Kalki 2898 AD,” hit Disney+ Hotstar series “Aarya” and prolific producer Siddharth Roy Kapur spoke with Variety on what has been an eventful 2023 for the Indian entertainment landscape.

2023, the first full year of business since the pandemic, saw Indian audiences return in droves to cinemas. It was also a golden year for streaming with all the major Indian platform delivering global hits.

Roy Kapur had a packed year with Season 2 of Emmy-nominated Indian space and nuclear program-themed “Rocket Boys” on SonyLIV, epic war film “Pippa” making a direct-to-streaming debut on Prime Video and comedy-drama film “Tumse Na Ho Payega” bowing on Disney+ Hotstar. “What we haven’t had is a theatrical release this year, which feels a little strange,” Roy Kapur told Variety, adding that “Deva,” an action thriller directed by Rosshan Andrrews and produced by Roy Kapur Films and Zee Studios, with Shahid Kapoor and Pooja Hegde in the lead, is gearing for an October 2024 theatrical release during the Dussehra holiday frame. “It’s been an interesting year of water getting to find its own level after the pandemic, so things are still a little bit in flux overall.

But the good part is that all the obituaries that were being written about the theatrical model dying out and people not coming back to cinemas, that’s been disproved completely this year, which is great,” Roy Kapur said. “The human need to connect is is something that we maybe didn’t think was as strong as audiences have shown us it is,” Roy Kapur added.