Prime Video says India still awaits its own superhero in streaming boom

MUMBAI: Prime Video India is hunting for the country’s first true homegrown superhero. Speaking at the CII Big Picture Summit 2025, Nikhil Madhok, director and head of originals, said the streaming market is flush with opportunity but still missing a breakout Indian hero rooted in local culture and mythology.

In a powertalk with Suhani Singh of India Today, Madhok said Prime Video is in the middle of its strongest growth phase yet. Nearly 25 per cent of its viewers over the past year were new to the service, he noted, while the pipeline of shows, films and unscripted series greenlit for the next 12–18 months is the platform’s biggest since launch. More than 100 originals are in development or production.

The creative shift within streaming, he said, is unmistakable. Crime thrillers may have dominated early on, but audiences are now flocking to more layered, emotional and rooted narratives. He pointed to hits such as Panchayat, Gram Chikitsalay and Dupahiya, along with a surge in female-led stories like Khauf. Women lead more than 80 per cent of head-of-department roles across originals, and 60 per cent of writers’ rooms.

Prime Video receives 500–600 pitches a month, but only a few advance. What cuts through, Madhok said, are ideas driven by passion, clarity and conviction: not creators tailoring stories to a perceived brief. First-time showrunners behind Khauf and Dupahiya exemplify the kind of authorship the platform seeks.

He dismissed the notion that star power drives greenlighting. “We’re not looking to cast big names, we’re looking to cast great talent,” he said, citing Mirzapur, whose cast rose to fame after the show and new titles built on fresh faces. Independent films such as Stolen, In Transit and Girls Will Be Girls also underscore the platform’s appetite for distinctive voices.

Prime Video’s franchises continue to grow aggressively. The Family Man season 3 became the streamer’s most watched series of 2025, pulling in three to four times the audience of earlier seasons. More than 60 per cent of its fiction slate has returned or is in development for new seasons, while fresh IPs like Call Me Bae, Dupahiya and Khauf have secured second-season orders. In unscripted shows, such as The Traitors and Two Much with Kajol and Twinkle have surged.

Yet, Madhok believes a major frontier remains untouched. India, he argued, has not yet created an original superhero fit for streaming, one drawn from its own mythology, not a Western import. “Can we create our own homegrown superhero that becomes the next big thing?” he asked. “That’s the beauty, the stories are all there, waiting to be told.”