Prime Video has set a global launch date for its next Hindi crime drama. Chaar Yaar, an eight-episode series about four Mumbai friends who get pulled into the city’s underworld, will stream exclusively in Hindi from Oct. 23 in India and more than 240 countries and territories.
The story and the cast
Set in the early 2000s, the series follows Jay, Tony, Saahil and Sameer. They come from middle-class homes, each carrying family duties while chasing something better. When a single choice, made because they feel they have no other option, puts them in front of gangsters and draws police attention, their attempt to change their lives turns into a dangerous chase. The friendship becomes the one thing protecting them.
The young leads are Purav Jha, Naman Jain, Saqib Ayub and Prayrak Mehta. The supporting ensemble includes Sai Tamhankar, Sikandar Kher, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Rajesh Tailang, Chunky Panday and Bhagavathi Perumal.
The team behind it
Vinay Waikul directs from scripts by Sambit Mishra and Saurabh Sawant. The three share creator credit with S. Hussain Zaidi. BBC Studios India developed the series, and Pink Window Production produced it.
That structure matters. BBC Studios India’s development role and Pink Window’s production credit mix an international studio’s production discipline with a local, cast-led story. For buyers evaluating originals, the package combines a familiar Mumbai crime setting with a young ensemble, rather than relying on a single star.
What it signals for Prime Video’s India slate
The launch places Chaar Yaar alongside a local roster that already includes Mirzapur, Paatal Lok, Farzi, The Family Man and Panchayat. That is less a random addition than a continuation of a proven playbook: local-language crime dramas that can hold subscribers in India and travel to the Hindi-speaking diaspora.
Nikhil Madhok, director and head of originals (SVOD) at Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios India, called the show “a thoroughly entertaining ride” and pointed to the platform’s support for new talent and Waikul’s craft as differentiators. Madhok’s framing also tells marketers where Prime Video wants the show positioned: as entertainment with friendship, ambition and humor, not simply a grim underworld title. That broadens the audience brief beyond core crime-drama viewers.
- Format: Eight episodes, Hindi-language crime drama.
- Launch: Oct. 23, exclusively in India and more than 240 countries and territories.
- Development: BBC Studios India; production by Pink Window Production.
- Slate context: Sits alongside Mirzapur, Paatal Lok, Farzi, The Family Man and Panchayat.
For media planners and content buyers, Oct. 23 is the immediate date to watch. The global day-and-date release makes this a diaspora play as much as a domestic one, while the early-2000s Mumbai setting gives it a specific nostalgia lane within a crowded crime-drama category. The risk, as with any crowded slate, is genre fatigue. First-week engagement will be the early signal for whether this becomes another retention engine or simply fills a content gap.
Source: Variety
