NEW DELHI (INDIA) – Amazon.com’s Prime Video is foraying into film production in India by co-producing a Bollywood film “Ram Setu” starring Akshay Kumar.
The south Asian nation is one of Amazon’s fastest-growing Prime Video markets, where founder Jeff Bezos has said it is doing better than anywhere else in the world.
“We are delighted to further take a step into co-producing by collaborating with a film that highlights our Indian heritage,” said Vijay Subramanium, the head of content at Amazon Prime Video India.
The film’s title is the Hindi name for Adam’s Bridge, a chain of limestone shoals linking the southern state of Tamil Nadu to the neighbouring island nation of Sri Lanka.
Indian mythology holds that the bridge was built by an army led by the Hindu god-king Rama.
In India, Amazon’s Prime loyalty program, which offers free delivery, early access to deals during sales and free music and video streaming, costs 999 rupees ($13.77) a year.
Despite its promise, India is also a market in which Amazon recently had to issue a rare public apology for hurting religious sentiment over some scenes in its original TV series, “Tandav”.
That controversy has put Bollywood, Amazon Prime Video and rivals such as Netflix on edge, prompting closer scrutiny of scripts for possible offence to religious sentiment in a key growth market.