Despite early monsoon rains disrupting production schedules and a challenging external environment, Vikram Malhotra remains bullish about the Indian entertainment landscape — and his company’s ambitious expansion plans.
Speaking from the sets of his project, an untitled film starring Madhuri Dixit and Triptii Dimri, which has been shooting through unseasonably heavy rains, Malhotra outlines an aggressive growth strategy that includes international expansion, vertical content development, and a strategic fundraising initiative to fuel the company’s three-year roap.
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“Despite the challenging external environment, we are staying on track. We are staying on course, and dare I say, actually enhancing and improving on the plan that we have set for ourselves,” Malhotra tells Variety.
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The momentum comes on the heels of a strong performance from “Chhorii 2,” the sequel to Abundantia’s 2021 thriller, which Malhotra says “exceeded its targets” on Prime Video in of both audience response and platform performance. The success has emboldened the company’s franchise-building ambitions, with Malhotra “presently exploring the possibility of a continuation” for “Chhorii 3” with director Vishal Furia.
Abundantia’s robust slate spans multiple platforms and formats. “Subedaar,” an action-drama featuring Anil Kapoor as a former soldier protecting his family, is set for theatrical release later this year, also starring Radhikka Madan, Saurabh Shukla, and Aditya Rawal. “Daldal,” a thriller series starring Bhumi Pednekar as Mumbai D Rita Ferreira investigating a cold-blooded killer, is heading to Prime Video. The company has launched its first set of Netflix projects — a film and series that will release in the first two quarters of 2026.
Additional projects in development include untitled features from acclaimed directors Randeep Jha (“Kohrra”), Mayank Sharma (“Breathe”), Hansal Mehta (“Scam 1992”), Bhav Dhulia (“The Freelancer”), Palash Vaswani (“Gullak”), and Sandeep Modi (“The Night Manager”). The slate also features “Daring,” a youth action-drama directed by Madhumita S. starring Arjun Das. The production house is doubling down on youth-oriented content and genre-specific areas like horror and paranormal, with two productions targeting younger audiences set to begin in the September and December quarters.
The company is also developing a Nirav Modi biopic based on Pavan C. Lall’s book “Flawed,” about the fugitive diamond merchant who fled India amid allegations of financial misconduct. Malhotra says they have “a good, compelling screenplay in place” and are “presently in casting” for the project, which will use “a fairly interesting narrative style” that’s “fully entertaining mainstream” while being “appropriately fictionalized.”
Malhotra’s strategic vision extends beyond traditional long-form content into the rapidly expanding vertical storytelling market of short, vertically shot dramas tailored for mobile viewing. Citing China’s $7 billion vertical content market and India’s mobile-first consumption patterns — with 82% of Indian consumers being mobile-first according to PwC statistics — he sees massive untapped potential.
“The vertical storytelling format market is a completely different ecosystem,” Malhotra explains. “It’s not just bite-sized content, but it’s also low involvement, low engagement content, which means that the filters to accessing and the benchmarks for satisfaction, delight, exhilaration levels are very different.”
The company is developing “an in-house ecosystem” capable of generating vertical content at “assembly line level of capability” with “low cost and high frequency.” Malhotra notes that successful vertical content genres — romance, romantic drama, soft erotica, and “soapy content” — are “antithetical to what we are seeing happen on the streaming on-demand side.”
Contrary to Bollywood industry doom-and-gloom narratives, Malhotra maintains an optimistic outlook on theatrical exhibition, pointing to recent successes like “Raid 2” and “Bhool Chuk Maaf” as evidence that audience appetite remains strong.
“I’ve always maintained that the desire to consume films in theaters was as high, if not higher, than ever before. Just what was being consumed in theaters had evolved and changed,” he says. “There is no floor to how badly a film can perform. Similarly, there is no ceiling to how well a film can perform.”
The key shift, according to Malhotra, is that audiences now seek either “a good cinematic experience where they are very clear that they’re seeing something that they enjoy on the big screen” or “a community outing” with family and friends. This has impacted which genres work theatrically, with dramas, thrillers, and mysteries — content that doesn’t require community viewing — migrating to streaming platforms.
Perhaps most ambitiously, Abundantia is preparing for international expansion with plans to create content for global audiences beyond the Indian diaspora. Malhotra envisions establishing “bases westwards” to access international talent and create stories with global resonance.
“I’ve always believed that India needs to move from being an importer of content to being an exporter of content,” he said. “There’s no reason why India can’t have the next ‘Squid Game’ or the next ‘Parasite’ or the next ‘Narcos’ or the next ‘Money Heist.'”
To fuel these expansion plans, Abundantia is actively pursuing a fundraising round, evaluating both strategic industry partners and financial investors. The company currently has a slate worth INR5-6 billion ($58-70 million) spanning 2025-2027, with most projects already attached to buyers or platform partners.
“Fortunately, Abundantia is at a scale right now where business as usual gets taken care of by virtue of the nature of our work and credentials,” Malhotra notes. The funding would specifically target scaling up domestically, international expansion, and accessing “newer formats and crossover mediums.”
As Abundantia navigates the evolving entertainment landscape, Malhotra’s strategy of maintaining creative quality while expanding into new formats and markets positions the company for continued growth despite industry headwinds. With a robust slate, strategic partnerships, and international ambitions, the production house is betting big on content that travels — whether vertically on mobile screens or globally across borders.
