Disney+ Hotstar to stream mini-series ‘Obi Wan Kenobi’ in local languages

Disney+ Hotstar will stream Obi Wan Kenobi, an American television miniseries, featuring the Star Wars character of the same name, in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam, starting 27 May. Set ten years after the events of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005), the series is directed by Deborah Chow, and stars Ewan McGregor alongside Hayden Christensen, Joel Edgerton, Bonnie Piesse, Moses Ingram, Indira Varma, Rupert Friend, and Sung Kang.

Video streaming platforms are fast recognizing the diversity of India as a nation and the importance of reaching out to Indians in their own languages. Services, both local and foreign, are upping their dubbing game for marquee content. While Amazon Prime Video had got Arjun Kapoor and Rajkummar Rao to dub for superhero series The Boys 2, Tamil movie industry star Vijay Sethupathi had lent his voice to their animation film Dhira. After Netflix brought out international originals such as Extraction, A Suitable Boy, and The Jungle Book dubbed in Indian languages, SonyLIV dubbed its popular original Scam 1992-The Harshad Mehta Story into Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam while Disney+ Hotstar had brought out Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Kannada and Malayalam versions of its web series Aarya. Industry experts say the dubbing game is important to reach out to tier-II and tier-III towns that services made inroads into during the covid-19 pandemic, with niche originals gaining mainstream popularity.

People are inherently culturally curious, intrigued by stories from all over the world. And dubbing enables more people to discover and enjoy these great stories, Debra Chinn, director, international dubbing at Netflix had said in an earlier interview. The Reed Hastings-owned platform currently dubs and subtitles its content in up to 32 languages across the globe.