Jio Studios, the content material arm of billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), is on a roll with a number of field workplace hits in a row.

Almost precisely a 12 months in the past, Jio Studios had launched a slate of 100 new films and TV shows. Those efforts have now come to fruition. 2023 noticed Marathi-language “Baipan Bhaari Deva” and “Jhimma 2,” Bollywood movies, Shah Rukh Khan’s “Dunki” and Vicky Kaushal’s “Zara Hatke Zara Bachke,” and Mithun Chakraborty-starring Bengali-language movie “Kabuliwala” turn out to be main hits. 2024 has already delivered Bollywood hits “Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya,” “Article 370” and “Shaitaan,” with Kiran Rao’s 2023 Toronto-playing feminist romp “Laapata Ladies” additionally scoring in its theatrical launch.

“We are the only studio to have seven hits in a row. We hit a purple patch, like how [cricket GOAT Sachin] Tendulkar was hitting his centuries,” Jyoti Deshpande, president, media and content material enterprise, RIL, instructed Variety. “We’ve always been champions of stories, and tried to do genre-breaking stuff, the ultimate goal being stories from India that can be taken to the world. And, one of the things that we underlined in April [2023], was that we must make regional films to scale. When we say regional, typically, it’s only the Telugu and Tamil [language films] that make a little bit of noise. The other regionals are forgotten heroes. We’ve been consciously investing in regional cinema as well for theaters, not just tokenism.”

Regional is Indian shorthand for movies that aren’t made within the Hindi-language Bollywood business. Jio Studios’ upcoming slate contains Pa. Ranjith’s Tamil-language interval epic “Thangalaan,” headlined by Vikram; Nagraj Manjule’s Marathi-language “Khashaba,” a biopic of Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav, the primary athlete from impartial India to win a person medal on the Olympics, with music by Oscar-winner A.R. Rahman; “Aaipan Bhari Deva,” the sequel to Marathi-language “Baipan Bhaari Deva”; Marathi-language musical “Sangeet Manapman”; and Punjabi-language movies “Carry On Jattiye,” “Ardaas 3” and “Manjhe Bistre.”

Jio Studios’ upcoming movie slate additionally contains Riteish Deshmukh’s period biopic “Raja Shivaji,” which is able to launch in Hindi and Marathi-language variations; and Bollywood movies together with Rohit Shetty’s all-star forged subsequent cop universe movie, “Singham Again,” Varun Dhawan’s “Baby John,” the sequel to hit 2018 horror comedy “Stree,” Akshay Kumar air pressure drama “Sky Forge,” and a brace of titles that includes famous person Aamir Khan.

Highlights of the streaming slate embrace Abhijeet Deshpande’s political interval drama “Union: The Making of India,” the place civil servant V.P. Menon and statesman Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel are confronted with the problem of uniting greater than 500 princely states into India; and Prakash Jha’s “Sankalp,” revolving across the Indian civil service exams.

Deshpande stated that the huge preliminary slate was to jumpstart the corporate. “We’re not doing now quantity, now we’ve shifted to our studio hat. From a studio perspective, we want to tell some of the most meaningful stories in as many languages as possible, with as wide a genre as possible. Then on top of that, we’re working with [Oscar winner] Guneet Monga on a couple of films. We are looking to work with Ritesh Batra [“The Lunchbox”], Richie Mehta [“Delhi Crime”], trailblazers within the worldwide markets as effectively, to say that, how can we take a few of our Indian tales and put [them] on the world map, in addition to have business and important success right here [India] in addition to overseas,” Deshpande stated.

“In terms of a film studio, we have managed to build something to scale without dropping quality. We’re saying some meaningful stories about India’s narrative to the world and some meaningful stories about women empowerment… some message in terms of social responsibility as well, without being preachy, or taking over the entertaining narrative of certain films,” Deshpande added.

The govt stated that regardless of being the biggest studio within the nation and belonging to one of many largest conglomerates on the earth, the strategy is to at all times take the partnership strategy, with all companions having pores and skin within the recreation thereby guaranteeing that Jio Studios is just not “sitting with all the risk and none of the rewards.”

“Our partners recognize that we go over and beyond to give a film its due, whether it is during the production process, marketing, distribution, we really push the boat out, and, feel as passionately about every story. It’s not transactional for us. And that is valued and recognized,” Deshpande stated. “So, we are after critical acclaim and commercial success. Ultimately, we are here for ROI [return on investment] as well. But at the same time, we want to introduce new genres. We are committed to theatrical storytelling and launching new talent.”

Jio Studios is already working with among the largest names within the enterprise in India, together with Ajay Devgn, Aamir Khan and Maddock Films. The subsequent step is to associate with Hollywood. Deshpande says that that is “something that one is actively working towards, but not really where one is a minority partner in some Hollywood project, but really, how can we bring them into our projects earlier on.”

“We have several ambitious projects that are in early-stage development, that also require technology to make. Reliance above all is a tech company. It’s early days, but we have to see how do we incorporate artificial intelligence and virtual production? How do we learn from where the West is at? And how do we bring some of that into our storytelling to make it cost effective, and relevant, visually, to a larger audience and give it that language-agnostic edge,” Deshpande stated. Jio Studios can be wanting East and exploring native collaborations to realize day-and-date releases for its movies in these markets.

Deshpande phrases the continued $8.5 billion merger of RIL group firm Viacom18 with Disney as a “fabulous development.” “In terms of our relationship, it’s pretty much arm’s length, the studio is as much open to business with associate companies as it is with Netflix, Amazon or anyone else in the market,” Deshpande stated. “It’s very much to try and keep the storytelling house as pure and independent as possible, which is why Jio Studios was not part of that deal to begin with.”