“Rana Naidu,” the Indian adaptation of “Ray Donovan,” has been renewed for a second season by Netflix.
The news emerged the same day that Netflix announced a 1.75 million jump in subscriptions worldwide.
The action thriller that stars Venkatesh Daggubati and Rana Daggubati trended on the No.1 spot as the most watched series in India for three consecutive weeks after launch last month and continues to be in the top 10 series in India for the fifth week in a row. It trended in Netflix’s global top 10 for non-English TV for two weeks after it launched on March 10.
Tanya Bami, series head, Netflix India, said: “ ‘Rana Naidu’ has been a great way for us to end the first quarter of 2023. The high adrenaline thriller has enthralled fans in India and around the world. The dynamic cast headlined by Rana and Venkatesh Daggubati and supported by a brilliant ensemble of Surveen Chawla, Sushant Singh, Abhishek Banerjee, Ashish Vidyarthi, have been lauded for their performances. We are delighted to announce that this high-stakes family drama and the riveting father son tension will be back for a second season with more twists, turns and pulsating action.”
Produced by Sunder Aaron and Locomotive Global, the series is created by Karan Anshuman and co-directed by Karan Anshuman and Suparn S. Varma. Aaron said: “The success of season one will encourage us to amp up the energy, drama, and thrills for the second one and we can’t wait to share the next chapter with Netflix members everywhere.”
Meanwhile, Ted Sarandos name checked “Rana Naidu” in the Netflix earnings call on Tuesday and talked up the streamer’s prospects in India, the world’s most populous country.
“We have to get the content that people just really flip out for. We’ve seen a steady improvement in that quarter over quarter, both in our films and our series. ‘Rana Naidu’ is a great show that the people are loving all over the country. And it causes a great deal of excitement for the service,” Sarandos said.
“We’ve got to get the pricing and the main payment methods right. India is a big prize because it’s an enormous population of entertainment-loving people, and you’ve just got to have the product that they love,” Sarandos added.
“We’re doing the creative part, and we’re getting the pricing better. And there’s always lots of promise to continue to grow in India. It is a very specific market in terms of – they like local content, but also you’re seeing their local content is travelling more than ever,” Sarandos said. “This was an incredible year, movies like ‘RRR,’ which did business all over the world and ‘Gangubai Kathiawadi’ was really a fantastic film that was in the hunt for best foreign-language feature. So, you look at all these things and say as the content opportunity continues to scale, and our ability to access the market and thrill those audiences continues to grow, we could do quite well in India.”
However, Sarandos added that the service is a “long way” from achieving that and investment in the country continues. The Indian streaming market is currently led by Disney+ Hotstar, followed by Amazon’s Prime Video in terms of estimated subscribers. Netflix is among the other entrenched major players in the market alongside JioCinema, SonyLIV and ZEE5.
