SOTY After Dark is an original take, says Reema Maya

Karan Johar’s Student of the Year franchise has always been about campus romance and youthful drama. The newest chapter, Student of the Year: After Dark, keeps the campus but swaps the love triangle for a murder mystery — and the trailer has had the internet asking one question: how similar is it to Netflix’s Class?

Director Reema Maya is not dodging the conversation. In an interview with Times Now, she acknowledged the comparisons and drew a line between copying and genre.

Reema Maya draws a line between derivative and genre

“Class is a wonderful show, and Ashim Ahluwalia is an amazing filmmaker,” Maya said. But she argued that every genre comes with expectations. If you are making a young-adult murder mystery, she noted, you will have a murder, a high school, teenage characters and interpersonal dynamics.

That, she said, is not being derivative. “One must understand the difference between something being derivative and something belonging to the genre,” she added. The series, in her telling, is a young-adult murder mystery and competition series, and the team tried to bring those elements together in its own way.

• The premise: Shanaya Kapoor plays a double role, entering the Student of the Year competition to find her twin sister’s killer.
• The cast: Abhinav Singh, Divik Sharma, Manya Grover, Deeya Damani, Adi Malik, Sheeba Chaddha and Vivek Gomber join Kapoor.
• The release: The series is streaming now on JioHotstar.

What the Class comparison really tells us

Class, Netflix’s 2023 adaptation of Elite, follows scholarship students navigating an elite Delhi school. The surface parallels with any wealthy-campus thriller are easy to spot, but Maya’s point is that campus, class tension and crime are genre building blocks, not one show’s property.

For Bollywood fans, the bigger shift is what this means for the SOTY franchise. Maya told Hindustan Times there was no pushback from Karan Johar. “There was none (pushback); only excitement and encouragement,” she said, adding that he told her to push it and have fun. She also said she felt honoured that Johar trusted her voice to reimagine a franchise close to his heart.

Judge it yourself

Student of the Year: After Dark is now streaming on JioHotstar. The question is whether it earns the phrase “original take” while carrying a franchise built on gloss, romance and campus drama into a genre built on suspicion.

Source: Hindustan Times

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#Bollywood#Class Netflix#JioHotstar#Karan Johar#OTT#Reema Maya#Shanaya Kapoor#Student of the Year After Dark