Hit Indian films get ‘animated’ rebirth
Toy Story, Frozen, Despicable Me — these are just some of the Hollywood animation film franchises that have won over Indian audiences. And Bollywood hasn’t been able to replicate the success. But now, many films such as Singham (2011), the Golmaal and Baahubali franchises, and even Fukrey, are being made into animated shows for the web and television, titled Little Singham, Golmaal Jr and Baahubali: The Lost legends, respectively.
It is encouraging, considering that several
Hindi animation films such as Roadside Romeo (its lead characters voiced by actors Saif Ali Khan and wife Kareena Kapoor Khan), Jumbo (voiced by Akshay Kumar) and Mahabharata (whose voice cast included Amitabh Bachchan and Vidya Balan) didn’t create the same impact as their Hollywood counterparts.
Actor Rana Daggubati, who played Bhallaladeva in the Baahubali franchise, feels the animation industry in India never really took off as “nobody built a standard in what Indian animation or storytelling should be. Internationally, how comic book companies did it, turned them into (films)… I think children in this country have moved on. There was lack of enough animation content when they were young, and they moved on to live action, gaming and 3D kind of content.”
On Baahubali being adapted into an animated series, he adds, “That’s the beauty of 360. In the West, they use different parts, a film becomes a TV property, a feature film becomes a comic book, and vice versa. Now we are taking that route.”
Interestingly, Koi... Mil Gaya (2003) had an animated spinoff on the film’s popular character Jadoo, titled J Bole
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Jadoo (2004), one of the first such attempts. Director of the Fukrey franchise, Mrighdeep Singh Lamba says, “There has been a demand for more of Fukrey as a film, so we thought of taking this to a wider audience, which is TV and kids.”
But trade expert Joginder Tuteja feels it’s too early to say if film-to-TV adaptations work. “Baahubali on TV... The scale wasn’t there, the animation wasn’t up to the mark. Fukrey might turn out to be a game-changer, but we have to wait and watch.” Atul Mohan adds, “The notion in India is animation films should be from Hollywood... as kids mostly follow Hollywood characters.” ■ rishabh.suri@htlive.com