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MUMBAI: For Abundantia Entertainment, the business of storytelling has always been about seeing the opportunity before everyone else does. Over the past twelve years, the studio has steadily built a slate around women-first stories, backing films and series such as Shakuntala Devi, Sherni, Jalsa, Chhorii, Daldal and the recently released Maa Behen. What may once have looked like a creative niche has, for founder and CEO Vikram Malhotra, become something far more valuable: a clearly defined business strategy.
“This was never an ad hoc creative choice for us. It was a strategic decision and one of the defining pillars of our business. I don’t believe stories are women-led or men-led; great stories are simply great stories. But when you look at the changing dynamics of audiences and consumer aspirations, one reality becomes impossible to ignore. India has an addressable audience of nearly 70 crore women across age groups, yet for decades, mainstream cinema was disproportionately serving only one half of the market. That represented one of the largest white spaces in Indian entertainment. We built Abundantia around addressing that gap, and today, that strategic clarity has become one of our strongest competitive advantages.”
The distinction is important. Malhotra’s argument is not that women constitute a separate entertainment market, but that the industry has historically under-served a significant part of its potential audience.
That is also why he prefers to move away from the familiar “female-centric” label.
“I’ve always disliked the term ‘female-centric’ because it immediately suggests these stories are somehow meant only for women. That’s simply not true. What audiences respond to are compelling characters. For years, the archetype of the Indian mother or female protagonist was someone defined by sacrifice, silence or submission. Then you have Rekha in Maa Behen, played by Madhuri Dixit, who arrives like a force of nature and shatters every one of those conventions. She chooses herself. She lives life unapologetically on her own terms. That’s what makes her universal.”
It is an approach that places character ahead of demographic labels. Rather than asking whether a story is intended for men or women, the larger question is whether the protagonist is interesting enough for audiences to care about.
The numbers reinforce that view. Across Abundantia’s slate, a substantial share of the audience continues to be male across virtually every age demographic. For the studio, that provides further evidence that stories built around authentic women characters do not necessarily produce a gender-segregated audience
The strategy is now expanding into another area where the entertainment industry is undergoing rapid change: technology.
Alongside its growing slate of psychological horror projects under its Psych label and its plans for science-fiction, Abundantia’s AI-focused creative division, aiON, is developing multiple films driven by artificial intelligence.
But Malhotra sees AI less as a replacement for traditional filmmaking than as a tool that can stretch the boundaries of what storytellers can attempt.
“AI isn’t replacing creativity, it is amplifying it. Our philosophy is simple: human first, AI empowered. The storyteller will always remain at the centre. AI simply gives that storyteller a far bigger canvas, allowing ideas that were previously impossible, impractical or prohibitively expensive to become reality.”
That philosophy places the creative idea firmly ahead of the technology. The promise of AI, in this view, is not simply faster or cheaper production, but the ability to make previously difficult ideas achievable.
And that could have implications beyond production itself.
Malhotra believes audiences are entering a period in which the definition of originality will become considerably more demanding. With more content, more technology and more ways to tell stories, simply being different may no longer be enough.
“We’re entering an era of disruptive storytelling where almost every convention we’ve accepted over the last hundred years will be challenged. The audience’s benchmark for originality will become dramatically higher. Over the next decade, I don’t believe there will be much middle ground left. Whether it’s a theatrical film or a streaming series, audiences will either deeply embrace what you create or reject it completely. The premium on originality, conviction and bold storytelling has never been higher.”
That may ultimately be the thread connecting Abundantia’s two seemingly different bets, women-first storytelling and AI.
Both begin with identifying a gap, challenging an established convention and taking a calculated view of where audiences are heading.
For a studio that has spent more than a decade building its business around differentiated stories rather than following the safest path, the next phase appears to follow much the same logic: find the white space, back the idea and build the technology around the story, rather than the other way around.
