Character entertainment firm Graphic India hopes to create India’s Marvel moment with local superheroes

Graphic India, a character entertainment company known for titles such as The Legend of Hanuman and Baahubali: Crown of Blood, is banking on featuring local superheroes in animation, comics, gaming and live action films to take them global and create a Marvel-like moment in India.

Sharad Devarajan, founder and CEO of the company, said India is sitting on a treasure trove of stories that have yet to make their presence across various pop culture forms. By creating intellectual properties (IPs) that can transcend geographical boundaries, the creative potential of the unique storytelling culture of India can be unlocked for the world, much like the West has already done, Devarajan said.

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Graphic India is also known for creating an Indian version of Spider-Man, Pavitr Prabhakar, who appears in several Spider-Man films, Astra Force, an animated superhero TV series along with Amitabh Bachchan for Disney Channel India, and Chakra: The Invincible, a film based on the character originally created by Stan Lee. It also co-produced Zoya Akhtar-directed Netflix original The Archies.

“We don’t look at ourselves as being in the animation, comic or live action business. We see ourselves in the storytelling business and creating fundamental multi-platform stories,” Devarajan said in an interview to Mint. “We have seen the most successful IPs transcending media platforms and venturing into multiple revenue models and markets. Over time, creating a seamless multi-platform experience of immersion will become a more defining trend and we will need great stories to feed these experiences.”

Catering to all ages

The two truths of the media business today, he added, is that everyone is in every business be it, films, toys or gaming. Plus, everyone wants to be in every country resulting in a sort of global land grab with brands like Marvel speaking to people everywhere in the world, from China and India to Brazil through characters that come to life via different media forms.

Devarajan said the company’s focus is on creating uniquely Indian, multi-platform content. The firm is developing six animated projects, including big-screen theatrical experiences that will cater to not just children, but all demographics.

Further, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, writers of Iron Man and Children of Men, will script a live-action, English-language film adaptation of Shadow Tiger, based on the Graphic India comic book character created by Devarajan. 

Overall, the company has six live action projects in different stages of pre-production. Devarajan has also founded Toonsutra, a webtoon comic platform backed by investors such as Sony Innovation Fund, Maiora Capital, Crunchyroll’s cofounder Kun Gao, Lightspeed’s partner Jeremy Liew, and Twitch’s cofounder Kevin Lin.

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Overall, the Graphic India slate will be divided equally between originals made in Indian and foreign languages.

To be sure, experts point to the challenges in the Indian market for pop culture forms such as comics and animation. Devarajan acknowledged they are seen primarily as kids' mediums, and the potential for sub-genres like crime, romance, superhero or fantasy to exist within them is not always recognised.

Indian filmmakers have turned to new and relatively untapped revenue streams to bolster recovery prospects for big-budget tentpole movies beyond their theatrical run. While titles such as Ranveer Singh-starrer 83, a film on the Kapil Dev-led Indian team winning the cricket world cup in 1983, and Fighter have brought out merchandise collections, others like Baahubali and Singham have seen animation spin-offs stream on television and video-on-demand platforms.

Experts have previously highlighted the difficulty in curbing piracy of merchandise associated with such properties.

“While this is a step in the right direction to create big properties, IP laws in India are not as stringent as they are globally. Any local vendor can create spin-offs without licences and sell products for cheap, taking away from the exclusivity of it all," Mehul Gupta, co-founder and chief executive officer of independent digital agency SoCheers, said in an earlier interview.