The desi web scene is growing by leaps and bounds. No wonder, a huge amount of content is being churned out across platforms, both desi and overseas, on Alt Balaji, ZEE5, Netflix and Amazon Prime etc.
Another clear indicator of the rising graph is the upward trend of the number of episodes being produced. What first started with four, six, then eight, is now hitting the roof.
If our sources are to be believed, the upcoming ALTBalaji youth show Class of 2020 (Lost Boy Production) which will stream in February 2020, might have 30+ episodes, 34 to be exact. This might be the single largest season fiction show on desi www.
“The combination of youth and s*x is a big hit with cash-rich millennials,” added our informed source.
Even Ronit Roy and Mona Singh starrer Kehne Ko Humsafar Hain 2 had 19 episodes. The recent horrex show Ragini MMS 2 had 15.
Sources say that higher budgets, coupled with higher expectations, have started this trend of rising episodes.
The lead actors of Class of 2020, i.e. Jatin Suri, Rohan Mehra, Chetna Pandey and Nibedita Das have been shooting for three to four months.
At first, there was talk that Class of 2020 will stream on Valentine’s Day, but now, maybe it will go live on 1st Feb itself. No clear final date has been announced so far.
Chetna confirmed the Feb buzz, saying, “We too have heard about the same, but nothing official has been intimated to us.”
“Releasing before V Day is also smart, as you can ride the build-up to the V Day week crest,” quips our source.
Class of 2020 producer Vikas Gupta (he has just returned from Bigg Boss, where he had gone as a stop-gap for injured Devoleena Bhattacharjee) has denied the above news. But our source sticks to the buzz.
ALTBalaji head Ekta Kapoor was unavailable for comment.
While welcoming the higher number of episodes as more work and more content to chew on, our sources caution that sometimes, as seen in a few other longish web offerings, the plots do tend to lose grip. Can the same money not be used for even better casting, storytelling and visual effects, as it happens in the west?