Emraan Hashmi defends Bard of Blood: ‘5% of audience shot holes in series, we would’ve lost masses if we appeased them’

Confirming the second season of his Netflix show, Emraan Hashmi claims Bard of Blood was meant to reach out to the masses and appeasing the ‘elite’ was never the agenda.

Actor Emraan Hashmi, who made his digital debut with Bard of Blood, has reacted to critics panning the Netflix series and said the aim for the series was to reach out to the masses. Emraan featured in the thriller alongside Shobhita Dhulipala and Viineet Kumar Singh. It was directed by Ribhu Dasgupta and was based on Bilal Siddiqui’s book by the same name.

Emraan Hashmi plays the lead role in Bard of Blood.

Speaking with Mid Day in an interview, Emraan said, “One has to understand the agenda behind the show. It was made to penetrate into the mass segments while maintaining international standards. Because of this brief, there was exposition in the show, which didn’t sit well with the elite audience. Only five per cent of the audience shot holes in the series. If we would have tried to appease them, we would have lost the masses. If we [designed it] to appease the metro audience, we’d lose out on a major chunk of, say, North India. Netflix doesn’t give out numbers, but they are happy to have penetrated into segments that they weren’t able to, six months back.”

“As an audience, I genuinely liked the show. The [initial] work has begun. We don’t have a date yet, but we’ll probably start shooting sometime mid-next year. The first season was entirely inspired from Bilal’s [Siddiqi] book. But now, we will go beyond the book, using the cliffhanger of the final episode as our cue,” he added.

In his review for HT, Rohan Naahar had written, “Arguing that Bard of Blood is intended for an audience that isn’t accustomed to dense, thought- provoking drama is disrespectful not only to millions of paying Netflix subscribers, but also to an industry that is yearning to be more ambitious. It is so disappointing to see such wonderfully talented actors, each of whom has proven themselves on multiple occasions — Raazi actor Jaideep Ahlawat has shone even in the same genre — be wasted on such drab material.”

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