MUMBAI: Adaptation of iconic BBC-produced show – headlined in India by Jackie Shroff, Vikrant Massey, Mita Vashisht and Pankaj Tripathi – gets massive response

While the entertainment industry in India continues to grow at astonishing speed, it’s OTT that has been setting new content benchmarks. A flood of shows created specifically for OTT outlets has captivated viewers with their gripping storylines and production values. The latest on this list is Criminal Justice, a drama produced by BBC Studios India and commissioned by Applause Entertainment.

Criminal Justice, released over the weekend as part of Hotstar Specials, marks the OTT debut of director Tigmanshu Dhulia, Vishal Furia and film actor Jackie Shroff, who stars opposite talent like Pankaj Tripathi, Vikrant Massey, Mita Vashisht and Anupriya Goenka.

The audience response has been overwhelming.

The show is the Indian adaption of the hit BBC-produced series of the same name, which was also adapted into the Emmy-Award-winning HBO show The Night of that was set in New York and starred Riz Ahmed.

Criminal Justice captures Aditya Sharma’s (played by Vikrant Massey) journey after an incident throws his life into turmoil. The 24-year-old Aditya lives with his middle-class family in Mumbai, and drives his father’s taxi but is ambitious. One night, his last trip ends with him accused of the brutal murder of a woman passenger.

To celebrate the success of the show, we reached out to the producers of the show.

Myleeta Aga, SVP and GM, South and South East Asia, BBC Studios, said: “Criminal Justice was a passion project. It was commissioned by Sameer Nair at Applause with Shridhar Raghavan writing the adaptation. Now, thanks to Hotstar, this iconic show has been adapted to India and has received a massive response. I could not be more proud of the team.”

On speaking to Sameer Nair, CEO, Applause Entertainment who commissioned the show in India, he said, "With this series, we wanted to adapt a global format and reinterpret it for Indian audiences. Criminal Justice is the first series from the house of Applause Entertainment and we are ecstatic with the audience response we are receiving. With support from BBC Studios and a leading OTT giant like Hotstar, we have been able to take differentiated content like Criminal Justice to the larger mass audience, to the world between Nagin and Narcos.

Going forward, we will continue to seek to find the perfect combination of talent and strong narratives to offer rich and premium content to the Indian audiences.”

We also contacted Shridhar Raghavan who did the adaption from the original to ask him what attracted him to the series.

Raghavan added, “It has been great collaborating with Myleeta & the BBC team & Sameer Nair and adapting Peter Moffat’s harrowing yet humane BBC series, Criminal Justice to the Indian context. Along with the Applause Writer's Room, we researched and explored not just our justice systems & our jails, but the many other informal trials that simultaneously play out - trials by media, social media. It was very challenging & difficult to adapt, and it’s nice to know that people are appreciating the show and are connecting with the characters played by Vikrant, Pankaj & Jackie sir who added layers beyond the writing. A huge thanks to everyone from me and all the writers on the show.”