Viacom’s affiliate to produce six films in India
The Indian Film Company (IFC) will produce six films on a budget of about 24 million dollars.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the Mumbai-based affiliate of Viacom-18 has decided to explore and engage in all aspects of the Indian film business.
It quoted Sandeep Bhargava, IFC CEO as saying that, ‘Our slate of six new films is in addition to the 14 films we acquired prior to the AIM (London’s Alternative Investment Market) listing from group company Studio 18.’
TV 18 established Studio 18 about a year ago to engage in all aspects of the film business, but following the formation of IFC early this year, Bhargava said that Studio 18 will primarily focus on ‘creative and distribution services while its forays into production via the 14 projects have been transferred to IFC, which will hold all (intellectual property rights).’
This ramps up IFC’s total slate to 20 films, which Bhargava says ‘will be rolling out over the next two years.’
The total spent on these films should reflect about 60 percent of the funds raised on AIM.
Included among the projects is ‘Little Zizou,’ the directorial debut of established screenwriter Sooni Taraporevala (credits include Mira Nair’s ‘The Namesake’).
Lined up for release in August is ‘Halla Bol’ (Make Some Noise), directed by Bollywood veteran Raj Kumar Santoshi, while included among the six new in-production projects are ‘Loot,’ directed by Rajneesh Thakur, ‘Masquerade,’ directed by Kundan Shah, and ‘Fruit N Nut,’ directed by Kunal Vijayakar.
Studio 18 recently agreed to develop comic book characters with the option of turning them into features and other media offshoots with Richard Branson-promoted Virgin Comics, based in Bangalore.
Although the Viacom-18 joint venture is first planning to shortly launch a general entertainment channel, Bhargava says that film content also could be exploited at a later stage, especially from an international perspective.
— ANI
Leave a Reply