At the CII Big Picture Summit 2025, Prime Video India’s Director and Head of Originals, Nikhil Madhok, said that the next milestone for the country’s streaming ecosystem could be an original, homegrown Indian superhero rooted in local culture and mythology.

In a wide-ranging PowerTalk session, Madhok discussed the evolving shape of India’s OTT landscape, Prime Video’s creative priorities, and what makes a pitch stand out in an increasingly competitive market.

The discussion, part of CII’s flagship annual gathering for the Media & Entertainment sector, unfolded as a PTI report noted strong industry interest in the platform’s content strategy. In conversation with senior journalist Suhani Singh, Madhok traced Prime Video’s growth story and the tectonic shifts that have shaped India’s streaming audience over the last few years
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Reflecting on the service’s rapid expansion, Madhok said Prime Video is currently witnessing “the maximum amount of growth” since its entry into India. He pointed out that in the past year alone, nearly 25 percent of viewers on the platform were entirely new users. Over the next 12 to 18 months, he added, Prime Video will greenlight or launch the highest number of films, series, unscripted shows, and regional titles since its inception. With more than 100 Originals in different stages of development, negotiation, or production, the service is also deepening its experiments with genre and storytelling formats.

Speaking about genre evolution on streaming, Madhok acknowledged that crime thrillers dominated the early years because they were easier to structure for binge-watching. Today, he said, creators are more confident in exploring layered narratives driven by emotional depth and rooted themes. Viewers, too, have shown a growing appetite for such stories. “You may forget a show or plot, but you won’t forget how that show or story made you feel,” he noted, citing titles such as ‘Panchayat’, ‘Gram Chikitsalay’ and ‘Dupahiya’. He also highlighted the strong emergence of women-led narratives — more than 80 percent of Prime Video’s originals currently in the pipeline have women leading key creative roles, with 60 percent of writers’ rooms featuring women.

Madhok also offered a rare inside view of Prime Video’s greenlighting framework. The service receives nearly 500 to 600 pitches every month, but only a few progress because of volume and strategic needs. What stands out, he said, is a creator’s conviction, clarity of intent, and the depth of world-building. Shows like ‘Khauf’ and ‘Dupahiya’ emerged from first-time showrunners whose pitch documents were strongly developed and creatively assured. Conversely, he cautioned that pitches shaped only to fit a perceived “brief” rarely resonate. “We are not looking to cast big names, we’re looking to cast great talent,” Madhok added, pointing to successes like ‘Mirzapur’ and ‘Khauf’, where relatively newer faces rose to prominence through performance.

He also spoke about the challenges of growing and sustaining successful franchises. While creating a hit tentpole is difficult, maintaining and expanding it is far more demanding, he said. With shows such as ‘The Family Man’, ‘Paatal Lok’, ‘Panchayat’, and ‘Mirzapur’, Prime Video has seen new seasons outperform earlier ones. ‘The Family Man Season 3’ set major viewership records in 2025, becoming the service’s most-watched series of the year. Over 60% of Prime Video’s fiction slate has returned for additional seasons or has future instalments under development.

Madhok underlined that the platform will continue to nurture independent voices, citing acclaimed films like ‘Stolen’, ‘In Transit’, and ‘Girls Will Be Girls’, which reflect the service’s broader commitment to creators beyond mainstream marquee names.

As he looked ahead at untapped opportunities, Madhok said one major gap remains unexplored. “We haven’t told a great story of a true-blue Indian superhero,” he said. With India’s rich culture and mythology, he believes the streaming ecosystem is perfectly poised to create a character who is authentically Indian and capable of becoming the next major pop-cultural phenomenon.