18-07-2025
‘Unaccustomed Earth': Nisha Ganatra Pulls Out Of Directing; Ritesh Batra Steps In To Helm
EXCLUSIVE: Netflix's upcoming drama series Unaccustomed Earth, based on Jhumpa Lahiri's collection of short stories, is undergoing a director change.
Nisha Ganatra has pulled out of helming the pilot episode for scheduling reasons, with Ritesh Batra coming in to direct and executive produce the first and second episode. Ganatra is directing the upcoming movie Freakier Friday, which has had extensive post-production that overlaps with the prep window for Unaccustomed Earth. After opening a writers room in February, Netflix gave the project an official series green light in April.
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Ganatra, who optioned the book originally, and was very involved in developing the series, remains as an executive producer. She suggested Batra to Netflix as a replacement, sources said.
Unaccustomed Earth hails from showrunner, writer, and executive producer John Wells and writer/EP Madhuri Shekar. It is about a tight-knit Indian American community navigating love, desire, and belonging. When a star-crossed romance between a devoted wife and her long-lost love comes to light, a scandalous affair is born, and new battle lines are drawn in this intensely interconnected immigrant community.
Wells executive produces through his John Wells Productions overall deal with Warner Bros. Television, the studio behind Unacustomed Earth. In addition to Wells, Shekar, and Ganatra, EPs also include Jhumpa Lahiri, Erica Saleh, Erin Jontow, and Celia Costas.
Indian filmmaker Batra's Hindi-language debut feature The Lunchbox won the Rail d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival's Critics' Week. It became the highest-grossing foreign film in North America, Europe and Australia for 2014 and received a BAFTA nomination for Film Not in the English Language. Batra went on to direct English-language films The Sense of an Ending for BBC Films and FilmNation, Our Souls at Night for Netflix and Photograph for Amazon Studios, which premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. He is developing a series with A24 and films with Topic and Closer Media. Batra is repped by Lark in the UK, Granderson des Rochers and CAA.
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