Lust Stories 3, which premiered on Netflix on September 18, is turning out to be a disaster, a sharp fall for a franchise that has otherwise built a strong track record over its first two instalments.
The first Lust Stories, directed by Anurag Kashyap, Zoya Akhtar, Karan Johar and Dibakar Banerjee, featured Vicky Kaushal, Radhika Apte, Kiara Advani, Bhumi Pednekar, Manisha Koirala, Neha Dhupia and Akash Thosar. It worked well with its targeted audience and earned the franchise its Emmy nomination credibility. The second part, helmed by Konkona Sen Sharma, R Balki, Sujoy Ghosh and Amit Ravindernath Sharma, featured Tamannaah Bhatia, Mrunal Thakur, Kajol, Vijay Varma, Angad Bedi, Tillotama Shome, Amruta Subhash and Neena Gupta. It received more mixed reviews but still managed to pull in solid viewership.
This third instalment, directed by Vikramaditya Motwane, Kiran Rao, Shakun Batra and Vishal Bhardwaj, and featuring a stacked cast including Radhika Apte, Konkona Sen Sharma, Aditi Rao Hydari, Radhika Madan, Sana Thampi, Vijay Varma, Abhishek Banerjee, Siddharth, Ali Fazal and Gurfateh Pirzada, has not managed to replicate either version of that earlier success. The response from audiences since its weekend release has been genuinely disastrous, and even on the viewership front, the numbers are not looking great. Within India itself, the anthology isn’t even trending in the Top 3 on the platform, a clear sign that this round has failed to connect the way its predecessors did.
For a franchise built on reinventing itself with a fresh set of acclaimed filmmakers every time, this marks the first time Lust Stories has failed to deliver on both the critical and viewership fronts simultaneously, making it a genuine outlier in the anthology’s run so far.
