'Sacred Games' Season two was rushed: Vikramaditya Motwane

Director Vikramaditya Motwane’s brainchild ‘Sacred Games’ is arguably one of the most significant shows in Indian television history.

While the first season of the show, starring Saif Ali Khan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Radhika Apte in lead roles, made a profound impact and garnered widespread acclaim from both critics and audiences, the reception for the second season was quite different. The second season faced criticism, with some going so far as to claim that it tarnished the legacy of its predecessor. In a recent interview with film critic and journalist Suchin Mehrotra's podcast 'The Streaming Show', Motwane delved deep into what went wrong with the second season of ‘Sacred Games’.

“ ‘Sacred Games’ season two was rushed. We had a lot of time while doing season one. We are not geared for that. We need to train or create executives in this system, whether it’s studios or streamers. We need to create more showrunners who are pure writers and less of directors.”

He added, “When ‘Netflix’ approached us initially, at ‘Phantom Films’, they said that while they wanted to create a streaming show, they wished to keep it cinematic and that was why they came to us. They also wanted me to direct either the first two episodes or the first and the last episodes and rope in other directors for the remaining episodes. When I asked them who the other directors were, they said they wanted to get Shakun Batra and Navdeep Singh. I asked them why Shakun and Navdeep work with me would if I am telling them what to do. There was a lack of knowledge. This spilt over to season two as well. Because of these 12 months, I didn’t have enough time to sit with the writers. I just wish we had more time.”