Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap has taken a swipe at Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos for his recent comments on Sacred Games, the streamer’s first Indian original, co-directed by Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane.
Sarandos, who appeared on Nikhil Kamath’s WTF Podcast recently, said he wasn’t sure if launching Netflix India’s original programming with Sacred Games was the right move, adding that something “more populist” might have worked better.
“For me, if I did it all over again, would I have done Sacred Games a couple of years later, and did things that were more populist? Maybe,” Sarandos said on the podcast. “But we knew that India was going to be a slower journey to get to where we wanted to get to.”
The comment triggered a sharp response from Kashyap, who took to Instagram to express his displeasure.
“He should have started with Saas Bahu .. he would have done well. Which he is doing now Z I always knew the tech guys are dumb when it comes to story telling but @tedsarandos is the definition of dumb is what I didn’t know . Good to discover that. This explains everything now,” the Gangs of Wasseypur director posted, alongside a screengrab of a news report on Sarandos’s statement.
Starring Saif Ali Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Sacred Games premiered on Netflix India in 2018 and was widely seen as a game-changer for India’s streaming landscape. However, the show was discontinued after its second season amid mixed reviews and controversy.
Sarandos’s remarks reflect Netflix’s shifting strategy in India, where the platform has increasingly leaned into mass appeal with shows like The Great Indian Kapil Show and legacy titles such as CID. “It took us a couple of years to get it right,” Sarandos admitted. “But it’s a great prize, at the end of the day. The addressable market is growing in the next couple of years in India, so it’s exciting.”