Prime Video Announces India Slate Including Horror Series ‘Adhura’, Starring Rasika Dugal; Telugu YA Drama ‘Hostel Days’

Reboots, sequels, and prequels are all the rage in Hollywood. Building franchises and expanding IP is the name of the game in 2023.

Naman Ramachandran Bollywood A-lister Varun Dhawan’s next film is the keenly anticipated Prime Video film “Bawaal,” from Nitesh Tiwari, director of India’s all-time highest grosser “Dangal.” Dhawan plays a charming, vainglorious and image-conscious history teacher who gains redemption via profound realizations stemming from his study of WWII and from his new bride, portrayed by Janhvi Kapoor. The film shuttles between Lucknow in northern India and Western Europe. Dhawan and Kapoor read for their parts separately with Tiwari, deliberately. “It’s like yin and yang, we’re like two opposites that attract and form a team. But we really did go about this film as a team. There was a little method approach to it, like in the first half of the film, when my character is not very nice to hers. When we were shooting in Lucknow, I didn’t interact much with her, I was a little cold to her,” Dhawan told Variety. As the film progresses, their relationship thaws.

Prime Video has released a sizzle reel of its lineup for the coming months, including a first look at Mr. & Mrs. Smith, starring Donald Glover and Maya Erskine, as well as looks at Season 2 of Reacher, The Boys spinoff Gen V, and more.

EXCLUSIVE: A day after Amazon Freevee’s Jury Duty made Emmy history as the first AVOD show to land major nominations, including Outstanding Comedy Series, the documentary-style half-hour is extending its stay on Amazon’s main platform, Prime Video.

Prime Video has just given a bit of hope to a series that was previously announced as coming to an end.

Naman Ramachandran Sushant Sreeram, country director of Prime Video India, has reiterated the streamer’s intention of doubling down on investments in the territory. “Our five-year plan in India for Prime Video is to double what we have done in the last seven years. And our investment thesis is actually an apt reflection of that. We have committed to doubling our investment over the next five years compared to what we have invested in the previous five. We said this recently and we continue to stick to it,” Sreeram told Variety. “The question that I and the entire team in India is asked is, ‘Can we do this twice as bigger? Can we deliver, twice as much for customers across shows movies and the whole works? That’s the simple summary of what the five-year plan is.”

Prime Video has unveiled has unveiled its latest slate of Italian original shows and films at a Presents event in Rome, including a remake of No Activity.

EXCLUSIVE: Prime Video Italy has ordered a six-part comedy-drama in the “tone in the director of Fleabag” from Italian producer Groenlandia.

You know an author is either a big deal or has a lot of sway when his name is in the title of a show, ala, Tom Clancy. And you may have no idea who Harlan Coben is, but he’s a New York Times-selling best author, and that’s really all that matters.

EXCLUSIVE: Production has begun on Cada Minuto Cuenta, a new Prime Video drama series set against the backdrop of Mexico’s catastrophic earthquake in 1985 that claimed the lives of at least 5k people. Osvaldo Benavides, Maya Zapata, Jesús Zavala and Antonio de la Vega will star in the production set to premiere in 2024.

EXCLUSIVE: The latest instalment in Sinking Ship Entertainment’s Dino kids TV franchise has gone into production.

Naman Ramachandran “Dangal” filmmaker Nitesh Tiwari’s “Bawaal,” starring Varun Dhawan (“Bhediya”) and Jahnvi Kapoor (“Mili”), has unveiled a teaser and confirmed its direct-to-digital global premiere date on Amazon’s Prime Video. Varun Dhawan plays Ajay Dixit, a school teacher in Lucknow, idolized by his students, and admired by everyone in town and Janhvi Kapoor as Nisha, a bright and beautiful girl, whose only hope is to find her one true love. But love is never easy and it has to passage through a war of its own. The film is shot in India and multiple international locations. The film is produced by Sajid Nadiadwala’s banner Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment in collaboration with Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari and Nitesh Tiwari’s Earthsky Pictures.

Naman Ramachandran Seasoned media executive Gideon Khobane has joined Amazon as the director for Prime Video Africa. Khobane joins with a remit to support the growth of the Prime Video service across sub-Saharan Africa, including South Africa and Nigeria. Working closely with the Africa Originals team, headed up by Ned Mitchell, the content acquisitions team, led by Ayanna Lonian and product teams responsible for launching customer features, Khobane is tasked with helping to provide a mix of original and exclusive TV series and movies for existing Prime Video members and to attract new customers in sub-Saharan Africa. The executive, whose experience over his 18-year career ranges from pay-TV to free-to-air broadcasters across sub-Saharan Africa, most recently served as a group executive responsible for general entertainment for the Multichoice Group, and previous to that, served as CEO of SuperSport International and channel director at M-Net. Khobane will continue to be based in South Africa.

Prime Video is about to showcase some cool chicks riding rad barrels.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Kevin Bacon is attached to star in a new Blumhouse Television series that has been ordered straight-to-series at Amazon’s Prime Video, Variety has learned. The action series is titled “The Bondsman.” The official logline states that it centers on Hub Halloran (Bacon), “a backwoods bounty hunter who comes back from the dead with an unexpected second chance at life, love, and a nearly-forgotten musical career — only to find that his old job now has a demonic new twist.” Amazon has ordered eight half-hour episodes. Production on the series will not begin until all guild negotiations have been resolved.

EXCLUSIVE: Just a day after announcing Black, White, & Blue as his first film under a four-picture deal with Amazon inked back in November, Tyler Perry has named Divorce in the Black as his second. Starring in the pic, which Perry will direct and produce from his script, are Meagan Good (Harlem), Cory Hardrict (All American: Homecoming), Joseph Lee Anderson (Young Rock), Taylor Polidore (Snowfall), Shannon Wallace (City on a Hill), Richard Lawson (For Colored Girls) and Debbi Morgan (Power Book II: Ghost). 

Jack Ryan is returning to Amazon Prime Video for a fourth and final season – you can find release details below.The new season sees John Krasinski return as Tom Clancy’s titular CIA analyst-turned-field agent for his “most dangerous mission yet”.The official synopsis for season four reads: “The fourth-and-final season of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan finds the titular character on his most dangerous mission yet: facing an enemy both foreign and domestic.“As the new CIA Acting Deputy Director, Jack Ryan is tasked with unearthing internal corruption, and in doing so, uncovers a series of suspicious black ops that could expose the vulnerability of the country.“As Jack and the team investigate how deep the corruption runs, he discovers a far-worse reality—the convergence of a drug cartel with a terrorist organisation—ultimately revealing a conspiracy much closer to home and testing our hero’s belief in the system he has always fought to protect.”The first two episodes of season four will be available on the service from 12am GMT on June 30. A further four episodes will follow, with one being released each week.Season three of the series debuted all eight episodes at once, but the service has now switched to a weekly release schedule for the final season.Alongside Krasinski, the fourth season will also see the return of Wendell Pierce (James Greer), Michael Kelly (Mike November) and Betty Gabriel (Elizabeth Wright).

It’s time for one last adventure with Indiana Jones, and a few new faces are joining our favorite archaeologist — including Shaunette Renée Wilson‘s Agent Mason.

Naman Ramachandran Prime Video India has revealed a blockbuster lineup of Indian and international titles ahead of Prime Day 2023 on July 15 and 16. The lineup includes the Hindi-language version of “Ponniyin Selvan 2,” starring Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, “Babylon,” headlined by Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie, Gerard Butler thriller “Kandahar” and Nawazuddin Siddiqui‘s Hindi-language drama-comedy “Tiku Weds Sheru.” Hindi-language original horror series “Adhura,” headlined by Rasika Dugal, the final season of hit series “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan,” Tamil-language superhero film “Veeran” and Telugu-language family entertainer “Anni Manchi Sakunamule” are also part of the lineup as are Tamil-language series “Sweet Kaaram Coffee” that captures the journey of three women and Telugu-language Young Adult series “Hostel Days.”

Prime Video’s unscripted originals push in the Nordics is continuing.