American streaming service, Netflix, has decided to turn Indian cult film Gangs of Wasseypur, starring Manoj Bajpai, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Huma Qureshi amongst others, into an eight-part series, which will be streamed worldwide. This is the first time such a measure will be taken for an Indian film and the announcement has come at the right time for Netflix is looking to expand its operations to India, officially launching sometime next year.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the film will stream with English, Spanish, French, Arabic and Chinese subtitles from the first week of December. The film’s North American rights are held by Cinelicious, which worked with digital rights aggregator Film Karavan and the film’s producer Guneet Monga on the Netflix deal. Film Karavan has also sold 20 other titles to Netflix including art films like Loins of Punjab as well as mainstream Bollywood affair Piku, featuring Deepika Padukone and Amitabh Bachchan, which will stream in January, next year.
Gangs of Wasseypur, which released back in 2012, is a five-hour long feature based on Bihar’s coal mafia and premiered at various international film festivals to glowing reviews including Cannes.
Courtesy: InStep Today (The News)
