|
New York based Marvel Entertainment,
the owner of popular characters like Spider-Man, Ironman,
Hulk and X-men, is planning big for the Indian
market. In a step which will strengthen its presence in India,
Marvel has signed a deal with its Indian partner Spacetoon
India to publish, distribute and market Marvel comics specially
designed for Indian market.
In addition
to its already existing English imports, the comic giant will add several new
offerings including Indianised versions of international superheroes - in both
Hindi and English. The company will also develop local Indian comic content with
Spacetoon India and has plans to take India-generated content to a global scale.
Bollywood is also very much on its cards with the company considering content
based on films and stars.  | Simon
Philips |
In
an exclusive conversation with AnimationXpress.com, Marvel Entertainment
International President Simon Philips, who is on India tour scouting for other
partners, shared, “It has been a while we started our business in India and we
are not looking at India for short term business. India has an incredibly rich
heritage and a number of stories to tell.” “We
are looking at India in terms of creating new stories, creating a Bollywood franchise
and building stories on Indian superheroes. The plan is to create local content
for Indian market and later take these stories on an international market, which
will let the world know about Indian stories and superheroes,” he said.  | Rajiv
Sanghari |
Spacetoon
India CEO Rajiv Sanghari added, “We are excited to club in with Marvel to bring
in the Super Stars from Marvel stable to India wherein they will be clubbed in
with an Indian superhero which we are planning to create or acquire. Our Publishing
division, Kids Animation India now is expanding rapidly to bring in these comics
by April and hence enhancing our division and are on recruitment spree. Its very
important to get the right talent for the objectives set up by Marvel and Spacetoon
together. Citing Marvel’s strategy
for the Japanese market, Simon explained, “In Japan, the market consists of products
which are in the Japanese flavor. We penetrated the market by partnering with
publisher Madhouse, who took our characters and redeveloped them with Japanese
look, style and stories. Later, this was taken to varied platforms and recently,
Wolverine and Iron Man, both international superheros were converted into a TV
series (48 X 22’) for the Japanese market in their local look and feel.” Marvel
is also eying the Bollywood to create content including comics, live-action movies,
animation TV series and features. According to Simon, the company is looking at
acquiring or licensing of Indian superhero characters, which are popular among
kids. The recently released live action-CG
movies Iron Man and Incredible Hulk, based on Marvel characters, did phenomenal
business by generating combined worldwide revenues of USD840 million. In another
development, an animated TV series based on Iron Man (48 X 22’), four hours of
which was developed by Hyderabad-based DQ Entertainment, will go on air in January
2009. On other upcoming projects, Simon
revealed that few live-action movies including Thor, Iron Man-2, Captain America
and Avengers will release in the next three years. money.sharma@animationxpress.com | 
