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Netflix's Ted Sarandos on Saif Ali Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui's 'Sacred Games': 'We were introducing something...'
'I thought this is going to be great,' Sarandos said. 'People in India love movies. This is a TV show that feels as big as a movie - it has movie stars.' read more
In a wide-ranging conversation with Nikhil Kamath, Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos looked back on the platform's early creative choices in India - particularly Sacred Games, its very first Indian original.
'I thought this is going to be great,' Sarandos said. 'People in India love movies. This is a TV show that feels as big as a movie - it has movie stars.'
But Sacred Games turned out to be more than just a hit show. It marked a paradigm shift in how long-form entertainment could be consumed in India. Sarandos noted, 'It was very, very novel, but I didn't realize that we were going to be introducing a brand new kind of entertainment to a country the size of India.'
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At the time, India's television landscape was largely defined by sports, talk shows, and family dramas - very different from the cinematic format Netflix was offering. 'There was nothing else like it,' he reflected, highlighting the difference between existing formats and the kind of 'cinema-infused television' Netflix was producing globally.
Sarandos also touched upon the timing of the show's launch: 'If I did it all over again, would I have done Sacred Games a couple of years later, maybe.'
But rather than viewing it as premature, the comments frame Sacred Games as a bold, foundational move - one that helped define the tone and ambition for streaming content in India. Its early arrival set the stage for a market that was just beginning to evolve.
He also acknowledged the broader learning curve: 'Early on, it took us a couple of years to get the product-market fit right including payment systems and all those things.' Yet, even then, the bet on India was clear. 'We knew that India was going to be a slower journey… but it's a great prize at the end of the day.'
That long-term view is now paying off. 'Right now, you can see how fast Indian households are adopting fixed broadband, big-screen TV is growing - the addressable market in India is exploding in the next couple of years. So it's exciting.'
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