Mumbai | After making impactful shows for OTT in "Scam 1992", "Criminal Justice" and "Black Warrant", content studio Applause Entertainment is now planning to expand its theatrical releases by collaborating with acclaimed directors like Imtiaz Ali and Kabir Khan for a romantic and sports-drama, respectively.

Applause Entertainment completed eight years in business in August and Sameer Nair, the managing director, is happy with the performance of the company's recent shows like Vikramaditya Motwane's “Black Warrant”, Nagesh Kukunoor's “The Hunt: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination”, and season four of Pankaj Tripathi-led "Criminal Justice".

Nair said the studio has 60 OTT shows to its credit and five to six films including Vidya Balan-starrer “Do Aur Do Pyaar”, “Zwigato” featuring Kapil Sharma, and Tahira Kashyap Khurrana's directorial venture “Sharmajee Ki Beti”.

"We would like to be regarded as one of India's largest content producers with regard to series, and would like to become one of India's largest film studios. For which we need to work hard, develop materials, work with the right talent,” Nair told PTI in an interview.

"We've a lot of subsequent seasons coming up of all the shows we have done. Our big plan now is to foray into movies, and to get into theatrical movies then go to streaming. About all the movies we do apart from the series, our business model operates on invest and reinvest, so we keep reinvesting into the business," he added.

Applause Entertainment is engaging with a lot of directors and actors, and at the moment the studio has three to four films in the pipeline in both Hindi and a Tamil movie, "Bison".

"We are going to do Imtiaz Ali's next movie, we are doing two movies with Kabir Khan, a big Tamil movie comes out in Diwali, called ‘Bison' by Mari Selvaraj and Pa Ranjith (who is producing it). Imtiaz always tells gut-wrenching stories from the heart, like a love story so that's what that will be doing. It has Diljit (Dosanjh), Vedang (Raina), Sharvari, and others," Nair said.

"Kabir is working on two things which we've not yet announced but we are currently working on. It will be how Kabir makes (his films). Kabir is a wonderful storyteller, one is a sports movie, it is based on a true story, it's different sports.”

The studio is also gearing up for the subsequent seasons for their hit series including “Black Warrant”, “Criminal Justice”, “Scam”, and “Undekhi”.

“We've done a beautiful show with Nitya Mehra which has got the lead girl of ‘Saaiyara', Aneet Padda. She is the lead in that as well. We've done a documentary on Salman Khan, which is now in the final stages of finishing. So, hopefully by the year end, we will see that,” Nair added.

Among the standout achievements for Applause Entertainment are shows like “Criminal Justice”, “Scam”, and “Undekhi”.

“‘Criminal Justice' is the first show that we had made and released and it's the first show in Indian streaming that's gone to its fourth season. So, that's a real favourite for us. ‘Scam' was one of our biggest hits shows and it put Applause on the map and made us big at that time.

"Another show is, ‘Undekhi', one of our nice small sleeper hits that's gone on to become a really big brand. This year we've had a good run with ‘Black Warrant', the fourth season ‘Criminal Justice' and ‘The Hunt'.” The third season of “Scam”, Nair said, will focus on maverick businessman Subrata Roy.

"He (Subrata Roy) is an incredibly interesting character and personality. He came and the way he built up his company and did all of that... So, it's that kind of story. These stories are not scandalous or sensational as much as celebratory stories and also cautionary tales,” Nair said.

Nair acknowledged the underwhelming reception to Vir Das's show “Hasmukh”, and Ajay Devgn-led “Rudra”.

“The show has great potential. We were disappointed it didn't do well. Maybe because the expectation of people from Vir was of an international comedian and suddenly seeing him as a 'dehati', and speaking in good Hindi was distinct,” he said, adding that they had grand plans for subsequent seasons.

“Rudra”, he said, did well. Ajay was terrific. Until recently when ‘Criminal Justice' overtook it, it has always been the most viewed show. It's just that numbers didn't work out. I don't think the economics worked out,” he said.