On Sunday, India’s biggest captive reality show, Bigg Boss, releases all versions simultaneously. In addition to Bigg Boss Hindi, Bigg Boss Tamil, Bigg Boss Telugu, Bigg Boss Kannada, and Bigg Boss Malayalam will also go live on September 6. The founder and Group CEO of Banijay Asia, Deepak Dhar, talks to SCREEN about what goes into bringing Bigg Boss to the world and how they have Bigg Boss Punjabi and Bigg Boss Bhojpuri coming up in 2027. He also spoke about the success of Alliance, Salman Khan’s appearance, and the show’s comparisons with Lock Upp.

Deepak Dhar on Bigg Boss

Talking about bringing all seasons of Bigg Boss together this year, Deepak Dhar said, “This time, it will be Bigg Boss wali Diwali. Bigg Boss has now become like a tentpole franchise. And this is the 20th year. We wanted to do something memorable to celebrate it. So, we said, let’s do this as an exercise across all markets. Six versions are going live simultaneously. And we’re very excited for it. You know, the entire festival period is going to be captured by Big Boss in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Bangla, and Hindi. You’ll see how we are amplifying the experience around what the audiences are going to watch. We have Salman Khan, Kiccha Sudeep, Nagarjuna, Vijay Sethupathi, Mohanlal, and Sourav Ganguly. So we are only elevating the franchise.”

 

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While Bigg Boss Marathi Season 3 concluded in April this year, its new season will air next year. Sharing details about it, Deepak said, “Currently, the show has just gotten over with Ritiesh Deshmukh. So when we come to the next season, we will think.” He further explained how the process for Bigg Boss worked and said, “It’s a two-pronged process. Our creative producers and creative development teams have been working non-stop on casting. What is the theme? What should be the house? A lot of all that happens round the clock. We are also blessed with the learnings of Big Brother that runs in 40 markets internationally. So we pick and choose things, thoughts, elements, narratives that are worked in different markets and obviously adapted for India.”

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On the success of Alliance and Salman Khan’s visit on the show

While Banijay Asia also produces other captive reality shows like The 50 and Rise and Fall, its latest show Alliance found success. Talking about the show, Deepak Dhar said, “Prime Video wanted to build something which is new and unique in the reality unscripted space. We were clear that we did not want to build something toxic, instead we wanted a fun, entertaining, and engaging property. We focussed on what kind of tasks would bring the contestants’ mental and physical abilities to the forefront. Which is why we built a huge arena where these tasks were set up and scaled. We filmed it with almost 50 cameras.”

The show also had Sohail Khan as a contestant, and Salman Khan’s appearance on the show became a talking point. Talking about Salman’s visit, Deepak said, “The story of two brothers is very emotional, right? And, you know, it is all credit to Salman Khan; he wanted to do it. He wanted to support his brother and stand with him. We were also caught unaware that he actually came; it was pretty much unannounced.”

 

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Deepak also spoke about the comparisons between Alliance and Ekta Kapoor’s Lock Upp Sach Ya Sazaa. He said, “I don’t see the need to entertain audiences with more and more toxicity. I don’t believe that is always the right way forward. It might work once; it never works for a sustained duration of time. I can only speak for Alliance. We wanted to make a very different and new vocabulary of reality. Even if we were talking about relationships, we were talking about how Sohail and Seema are friends, showcasing the positive side of things. We really didn’t want to focus on anything negative in the house or in the headquarters. And even the friendships, emotions, and the drama that was unfolding were extremely warm and personal.”

Bigg Boss Punjabi and Bhojpuri to launch next year

Deepak also spoke about their upcoming slate and said that they further plan to expand the Bigg Boss universe. “We have just we’ve been very busy on the reality side. We’ve been very busy on the scripted side. We had Raakh that released a little over a month ago and was a massive success. Campus Beats is out now. There will be an Indian adaptation, or the Hindi adaptation of House MD, that will come out very soon. Next year, we will have Bhojpuri and Punjabi franchises for Bigg Boss up and running,” Deepak said.