Netflix to stream Telugu film ‘Dasara’ in Hindi

New Delhi: Netflix, American streaming platform, has announced the Hindi premiere of Telugu film Dasara, on 25 May. The period action drama written and directed by debutant Srikanth Odela stars an ensemble cast of Nani, Keerthy Suresh, Dheekshith Shetty, Shine Tom Chacko, Samuthirakani, Sai Kumar and Poorna. It had released in theatres late March.

Video streaming platforms are fast recognising the diversity of India as a nation and the importance of reaching out to Indians in their languages. Services, both local and foreign, are upping their dubbing game for marquee content.

Amazon Prime Video had earlier onboarded Arjun Kapoor and Rajkummar Rao to dub for superhero series The Boys 2. Tamil movie industry star Vijay Sethupathi had also lent his voice to their animation film Dhira. After Netflix showcased international originals like Extraction, A Suitable Boy and The Jungle Book dubbed in Indian languages, SonyLIV had dubbed its popular original Scam 1992-The Harshad Mehta Story into Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. Disney+ Hotstar had released Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Kannada and Malayalam versions of its web series Aarya earlier.

Industry experts say the dubbing game is important to reach out to tier-two and tier-three towns that services have penetrated into during the covid-19 pandemic with even niche originals gaining popularity.

Media industry experts said the extension of web show experiences from an audio perspective beyond subtitles was long overdue. Plus, the strategy takes inspiration from the popular Hollywood studio move of getting top Bollywood stars to dub for foreign flicks. Tiger Shroff had dubbed for Tom Holland in the Hindi version of Spider-Man: Homecoming while Varun Dhawan had voiced Marvel’s superhero movie Captain America: Civil War.