Madhuri Dixit says Hum Aapke Hain Koun would have been a bigger hit on Netflix

Madhuri Dixit is set to produce a Marathi film for Netflix, 15th August. She called the ‘marriage of internet and movies’ great.

Madhuri Dixit, who will produce a Marathi film for Netflix, said that her popular 1994 film Hum Aapke Hai Koun would have greatly benefitted had streaming been available then.

Madhuri Dixit is in Singapore for a Netflix event with her husband Dr Sriram Nene. (Twitter)

It was announced Friday at Netflix’s See What’s Next event in Singapore that Madhuri would produce a Marathi film called 15th August for the streaming giant.

“There are two magical things in the world,” Madhuri said, “cinema and the internet.” Netflix, she said, is a great marriage of these two things.

“If we had the infrastructure back then,” Madhuri said about whether online streaming would have helped the Sooraj Barjatya romance film, “it would have magnified.”

Hum Aapke Hain Koun would have been watched by even more people, and it already did very well, she said. The film, which also stars Salman Khan, went on to become the first Indian movie to make the then unprecedented Rs 100 crore at the box office. The film also won five Filmfare awards.

“There are 5000 theatres in India, 9000 in China,” Madhuri noted. “Netflix has more than a hundred million subscribers,” she said, highlighting the scope of streaming.

Madhuri Dixit and Leena Yadav speak during a panel on day two of the Netflix See What's Next: Asia event at the Marina Bay Sands on November 9, 2018 in Singapore.

She also said that the audience these days likes to have control over how it consumes content. “When I had my kids I couldn’t step out of my house for three months. I wish I had Netflix then,” she said.

Streaming gives filmmakers the freedom to express themselves, said Madhuri, expressing excitement for a future in which stars might not be as vital to getting programmes and films greenlit. “There will always be stars in India but this a groundbreaking, disruptive system,” she said, joking that both her Bucket List and Jack Nicholson’s version pop up together.

15th August is expected to release in 2019.

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