Netflix CEO felt SLB pitched Heeramandi to hear ‘NO’

Known for his expansive sets and larger-than-life cinema, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, without a doubt, is simply a antheral with a vision. He has been known to bring beauteous stories connected the 70MM for decades, and thus, erstwhile helium decided to marque his OTT debut, it came some arsenic a saccharine astonishment and shock.

According to Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos, it came arsenic a daze due to the fact that SLB is specified a large sanction successful the cinema satellite that erstwhile helium showed involvement successful a bid format for OTT, it was thing ‘unheard of’

Ted Sarandos thought Sanjay Leela Bhansali pitched Heeramandi to perceive a ‘No’

“Heeramandi was astir apt 1 of the astir creatively absorbing projects I’ve worked connected successful India. I was progressive successful the greenlighting meetings for it. He (Sanjay Leela Bhansali) came to LA to bash the pitch. He came successful with this precise large vision.

Honestly, it astir felt similar a dare—like helium was saying, ‘I situation you to marque this; it’s truthful big. He’s a fable of cinema, truthful the thought of him making a TV Show was unheard of. I thought helium came for america to accidental no,” Ted shared successful his caller enactment with Nikhil Kamath.

“And then, erstwhile we said yes, determination were tons of delays. It was a analyzable production," helium continued.Announced backmost successful 2021, Heeramandi took astir 3 years to implicit and yet premiered successful May 2024.

Staying existent to his cinematic style, Bhansali insisted connected utilizing monolithic real-life sets alternatively of integer backdrops, bringing old-school charm to modern streaming.

“Heeramandi is simply a existent reflection of India’s emotion for cinema”

Once the bid started to instrumentality carnal form, Ted was spellbound. He recalled loving the old-world charm brought by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. “He built these enormous, applicable sets that we changeable on. There was thing beautifully old-fashioned astir each constituent of the production.

And helium was truthful arrogant of it. I was truthful arrogant of him. To me, Heeramandi is simply a existent reflection of India’s deep, enduring emotion for cinema," Ted mentioned.

‘Heeramandi’

Headlined by Manisha Koirala, Sonakshi Sinha, Aditi Rao Hydari, Sanjeeda Sheikh, Richa Chadha, Sharmin Segal, and Taha Shah Badussha, Heeramandi focused connected the lives of courtesans successful the city's red-light district. Set successful Lahore earlier the partition, the bid was precocious connected play and emotions.