Sacred Games was a game changer in the Indian streaming space. There had been web series in India before that but the Anurag Kashyap-Vikramaditya Motwane show transformed how filmmakers looked at the scale and scope of these shows, and enabled bigger stars to head to OTT. The show was critically acclaimed too, at least for its first season. The second and final season, many felt, was a letdown. In a recent conversation with DNA, Motwane, the show’s co-director, opened up on the reactions and the show’s abrupt ending.
Sacred Games, which starred Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Saif Ali Khan, and Pankaj Tripathi, was based on a book by Vikram Chandra. The gangster thriller’s second season had an open-ended c;osing, which many felt was incomplete. Addressing that, Motwane says, “I am kind of ambivalent towards that. I think the end of season 2 works as the end honestly. Yes, I would have liked to have a full closure around the entire thing, a little bit more. I think season 2 was a bit rushed in terms of things from all sides.”
Motwane adds that the rushed nature of the season, which many critics pointed out as well, was due to the time contraints he and fellow director Anurag Kashyap had while making the show. “Those are the teething pains that you have when you think we have to have a second season within 12 months of the first season. That is the format. I know why they do it even if I am not completely in agreement with the entire process,” he says.
The filmmaker adds that if the western concept of showrunner is introduced in India, shows may be made in a much more structured manner. “We are not set up as yet for the classic showrunner-director format, where the showrunner’s entire job is to be the creative voice while the director is going and executing it. We are not geared for that. It is too early in the day for that,” he says. Circling back to the conclusion of Sacred Games, Motwane adds, “I would have liked a resolution but it is what it is.”
Sacred Games premiered on Netflix in 2018 and the second season in 2019. Neeraj Ghaywan also directed some episodes in season 2. Motwane recently returned to the streaming space after four years with the critically-acclaimed Prime Video show Jubilee. The period drama, set in the Bombay of 1940s and 50s, tells a fictional tale of superstars of the era.
