VMPL
New Delhi [India], August 24: Mumbai-based production house Matchbox Shots has announced that auteur Sriram Raghavan is developing new stories for the company, including an untitled thriller in the vein of his cult classic Johnny Gaddaar, which completes 20 years in 2027.
"Sriram gave Matchbox its first film and its first lesson: a story told with total conviction will always find its audience," said Sanjay Routray, founder, Matchbox Shots. "To be developing a thriller in the Johnny Gaddaar zone in its twentieth anniversary year is a homecoming for both of us."
The announcement comes as Operation Safed Sagar, the company's war series for Netflix, continues its run at No. 2 worldwide among non-English titles and No. 1 in India, the second consecutive Netflix series produced by Matchbox to storm the global charts after IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack also debuted globally at No.2.
Mounted on a budget of over Rs 200 crore, the series is the most ambitious project the house has attempted: fighter aircraft filmed at working air bases, a 450-strong crew working on sets in punishing high-altitude conditions.
That scale is a long way from where the house began. Raghavan's Andhadhun, its first production, cost around Rs 16 crore and grossed over Rs 450 crore worldwide, among the highest grossing Indian films of 2018. The journey from one to the other rests on a lesson learnt early: back the story, back the creator, and control the cost.
Between those two poles sits a slate that has moved deliberately across genre and scale: Monica O My Darling, Three of Us, Scoop, Merry Christmas, and Khauf, each finding its audience on its own terms. Diversification began as a creative instinct and evolved into a business strategy, letting the company take different kinds of bets without depending on one audience or format.
Led by Sanjay Routray and partners Sarita Patil and Dikssha Routray, Matchbox insists that it measures the quality of its slate by longevity, not opening numbers. "Are people still watching a film years later, still recommending it? That love cannot be bought or gamed," says Sarita Patil.
While the production house is broadening its streaming slate on the back of Operation Safed Sagar's global success, the partners maintain that it remains equally invested in expanding its theatrical slate, insisting that "every format has its own economics and its own audience, and we develop for each one deliberately. Some stories are meant to be discovered in a dark hall full of strangers, some in the comfort of your living room. Both experiences are equally important to us."
That conviction is drawing more of the country's most distinctive filmmakers to the house. Alongside the Raghavan projects, Matchbox has projects in development with Hansal Mehta, Vasan Bala and Jasmeet Reen. The pipeline also runs through the page: the company has acquired rights to books including The Gurugram School Murder and The Johnson and Johnson Files, among other projects at various stages of development, part of a deliberate push to own its stories rather than compete for finished scripts.
"The slate looks eclectic from the outside. From the inside it is one decision made over and over: does this story deserve to exist, and can we make it at a cost its audience will justify," said Sanjay Routray. "A quiet small-budget film like Three of Us, made lean, can be as rewarding for us as a Rs 200 crore epic like Safed Sagar. The film does not need to be big. The maths needs to be right."
While Matchbox terms itself a boutique production house, its ambition is larger: build enduring IP, deepen long-term partnerships with creators and work across theatrical, streaming and international markets. Its ultimate test is not whether it can make another hit. It is whether quality, done with discipline, can become a business model.
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