Filmmaker Nagraj Manjule, the director behind critically acclaimed films such as Fandry, Sairat, and Jhund, says his foray on OTT with Vijay Varma-starrer Matka King wasn’t a calculated move but a creative shift after hit fantasy drama Game of Thrones showed him the unique potential of long-form storytelling.
“There was no such thing as to whether I should do it or not to do it (make OTT show). When this idea came, I was like, ‘Let’s do it’. When I met Sid (Siddharth Roy Kapur, producer) sir, he said he was also thinking of this subject. We were already working on it with Ashwini ji (Sidhwani, producer), Ashish ji (Aryan, writer) and me. So, we worked on it together, Amazon liked it very much, and the work started,” Manjule told PTI.
The Sairat director said Game of Thrones, the hit HBO drama based on George RR Martin’s books, was the first OTT show he watched during the lockdown and it changed how he viewed storytelling. “Many people told me to watch this show. When I saw it, I enjoyed it a lot. I realised OTT has a different strength. When you watch it, you keep (binge) watching a long story. So, I had liked the show, Game of Thrones,” the filmmaker, who predominately makes Marathi-language films, said.
Matka King follows the story of Brij Bhatti, a sharp-minded and enterprising cotton trader, who navigates the fast-changing landscape of 1960s Bombay in pursuit of legitimacy and respect. The eight-episode series is set against a world of bustling markets, crowded chawls, and shifting power dynamics. What begins as an ambitious idea soon takes on a life of its own, drawing in people across social strata.
Vijay Varma plays the leading role of Brij Bhatti. The show, which is set to premiere on Prime Video on April 17, also stars Kritika Kamra, Gulshan Grover, Sai Tamhankar, Siddharth Jadhav, Girish Kulkarni, and Jamie Lever among others. Matka King is produced by Manjule, Siddharth Roy Kapur, Gargi Kulkarni, Ashwini Sidwani, and Ashish Aryan, under the banners of Roy Kapur Films, Aatpat Production, and SMR Productions.