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Mumbai will soon become home to Netflix’s first wholly-owned, full-service, post-production facility serving the streaming company’s global production of live-action films and series.
The facility will be fully operational by June 2022 and have 40 offline editing suites. These are being designed as flexible, collaborative and inspiring environments for showrunners, directors, editors and sound designers. They are expected to result in advanced media management workflows.
Mumbai is home to the Hindi-language industry Bollywood and is where Netflix’s Indian operations are also based. It is is increasingly becoming a pole for Netflix’s international operations.
In 2020, the company launched NetFX, a cloud-based platform that enables multiple Indian artists to handle VFX work for global titles. The streamer is now investing in the latest technologies and skill development through multiple certifications and training workshops across post-production, script writing and other aspects of production.
“This wonderful creative space in Mumbai reinforces our commitment to India’s entertainment industry as we continue to empower creators with the best resources to tell great stories,” Vijay Venkataramanan, director, post-production, Netflix India, told Variety.
Netflix launched in India in 2016 and has been steadily increasing its output of homegrown original films and series. It invested $410 million over 2019 and 2020 on local programming and unveiled a 40-strong India slate across multiple genres in March.
Indian-made hits for the service include noir series “Sacred Games,” preschool series “Mighty Little Bheem,” International Emmy-winning series “Delhi Crime” and feature films including “Guilty,” “Ludo,” “Pagglait” and “Paava Kadhaigal.” The next big hitter for the streamer is expected to be Tamil-language film “Jagame Thandhiram,” starring popular actor Dhanush, which premieres on June 18.
“We want to continue to contribute to the Indian creative community,” Netflix said in a blog post. “Our goal is to keep improving the overall experience for our talent and industry partners, and equip them with the best resources to tell authentic stories in the most engaging manner. We are in a golden age of entertainment in India – this is the best time to be a creator and consumer of great stories.”
