With the launch of the eight-part TV series of the animation film, media veterans foresee a new market for locally produced animation series and films.
MUMBAI: Walt Disney Company (India) has recently acquired the rights of the movie, Hanuman, from Sahara One Motion Pictures through their assignee Percept Picture Company. Disney has converted this movie into an eight-part television series. The company plans to showcase multiple airings throughout the three-year contract time span.
This has opened a new chapter for the animation industry in India and veterans feel that now the market for local production will not only grow but will also introduce multiple sources for milking revenue.
Rajesh Turakhia, CEO, Maya Entertainment Ltd, says: “The success of Hanuman has given confidence to a lot of production houses to fund animation projects. There is a definite growth in the local market in animation production. The market size is estimated to be about $950 million and has the potential to grow to almost double in the next two years.”
Turakhia also emphasises that the success of Hanuman is not only because of the animation but also due to the excellent marketing and exploitation of revenues across all platforms, including licensing and merchandising. He believes that if this trend continues, then it will become viable to execute better quality animation projects in India.
AK Madhavan, CEO, Crest Animation Studios, highlights the finest aspects of creating animation series in terms of content for kids’ vis-à-vis live action. He says, “Animation content has huge shelf life. Therefore, it can be aired for decades. Secondly, it has the ease of translation. For a country like India, with so many different languages, animation series can be easily converted to different feeds.”
On the contrary, Sesha Prasad, digital production manager, Rhythm & Hues Studios India, feels, “The prospect of local production always existed. However, production for local market has big financial constraints as budgets are not very appealing and they are no where close to budgets offered for a television series that is produced for the American or the European market.”
Debraj Tripathy, general manager, Maxus Delhi, says, “Firstly till date kids’ channels had the option of purchasing only internationally produced animation series only. However, acquisition of local animation products can prove to be far more cost effective than the international ones.”
Siddharth Roy Kapoor, senior vice-president, marketing and communications, UTV Group, says, “Till this day and age we could not acquire locally produced animation programmes as they were qualitatively not up to the mark.”
Kapoor adds: “To make it appeal to all the age groups apart from story there needs to be right creatives in place. Both story-telling and quality of the product should go hand-in-hand.”
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