From Mumbai garage to Hollywood: The man bringing India its Avatar moment

It is here that Namit Malhotra, the 48-year-old chief executive officer (CEO) of Prime Focus Group, and its global visual effects arm DNEG, is attempting something no Indian filmmaker has done before: Stage Ramayana, India’s most sacred story, as a Hollywood epic.

“This isn’t an Indian film," Malhotra says. “It’s a global movie told through Indian eyes."

He isn’t being flippant. The film, backed by his company, will be released in Hollywood late 2026 and is expected to be one of the most expensive productions ever mounted out of India. If Malhotra’s own estimates hold, it could cost close to half a billion dollars ( ₹4,000 crore) across two parts. Apart from Kapoor as Ram and Sai Pallavi as Sita, the film’s music is composed by A.R. Rahman and Hans Zimmer.

“If you can make Superman, or Avengers, or Avatar, why can’t we?" he asks. “We can’t bring Ram into the world sounding apologetic."

For someone whose company has lost money in eight of the past 10 years, the ambition borders on audacity. Prime Focus reported revenue of ₹3,599 crore and a loss of ₹458 crore for the year ended March 2025. Its debt stood at ₹4,879 crore. Yet, the markets have been kind of late. After years of being ignored, Prime Focus’ stock has shot up 64% in the last six months. Seasoned investors like Madhusudan Kela, Ramesh Damani, and Utpal Sheth have taken fresh positions, while Ranbir Kapoor himself bought a stake worth ₹15 crore.

Their bet seems to rest not on the balance sheet, but on belief—belief that Ramayana, and the man behind it, could change the story of Indian entertainment.

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Malhotra’s story begins far from the scale of his current ambition. In the mid-1990s, when television serials were booming, he set up an editing studio in a garage in Mumbai with second-hand equipment.

“At 21, I took a ₹2 crore loan when my turnover was ₹70 lakh," he recalls. “My father signed a personal guarantee and put our house on the line. That’s what betting your shirt looks like."

The gamble worked. As digital editing became indispensable to film and advertising, Prime Focus grew rapidly. Early investors included Adlabs’ Manmohan Shetty and the late Rakesh Jhunjhunwala. By the time the company listed in 2006, it was India’s largest post-production house. But Malhotra had bigger plans. He wanted to take Indian artistry to the centre of the film world—Hollywood.

“No Indian in a hundred years had broken into mainstream Hollywood," he says. “People forget that. We make more movies than anyone, but Hollywood never cared who we were. They didn’t need us."

The realization came after he moved to Los Angeles in 2010 to rescue Prime Focus’ struggling overseas acquisitions. “You can’t really outsource creativity," he explains. “Filmmakers don’t want to send their life’s work to a ‘cheaper’ place. You have to be part of the conversation, not the back office."

In 2014, Malhotra pulled off what would define his career: the acquisition of London-based Double Negative, or DNEG, the Oscar-winning visual-effects company behind Inception.

Backed by Anil Ambani’s Reliance MediaWorks, the deal, whose value was not disclosed, gave Prime Focus credibility it had never enjoyed before. DNEG’s London boutique became a global powerhouse with operations in Canada, the US, and India. In the decade since, the company’s work has earned eight Academy Awards, including for Dune: Part Two, released earlier this year.

“We’ve transformed DNEG from a 700-person team in London to nearly 10,000 artists worldwide," Malhotra says. “And we’ve put India on the map. Today, it’s hard to find a Hollywood movie that doesn’t have Indian artists in the credits."

Bollywood director Nikkhil Advani, who has helmed Kal Ho Naa Ho, Batla House, and Vedaa, believes Malhotra is uniquely placed to take India’s stories global. “If there is someone qualified to launch an Indian-made film in Hollywood, it’s Namit," he says. “He’s the only Indian who can call anyone in the big studios."

Glorious India

Ramayana, Malhotra explains, has been in development since 2017, years before the pandemic. Most of the shooting is complete.

“There’s a Ramayana universe being created—it’s not just one movie," he says. “And we’re now figuring out how to bring it to the world. No Indian film has ever had a true global release. We’re working with IMAX (motion picture technology company), and we’re talking to others. But I have to get the film ready first."

Visual effects is all about time spent on post production and rendering, which is very time consuming. Behind the camera, DNEG’s technology and teams are thereby stretched to their limits. Over 9,500 employees across continents are contributing to the project, using the same proprietary pipelines that powered Oppenheimer (DNEG was the visual effects partner) and Dune.

Malhotra is adamant that the film’s international scale doesn’t dilute its Indian essence. “We’re fusing the best Indian artists with global collaborators—Hans Zimmer, action teams, art departments. Storytelling and direction are 100% ours."

Ramayana is directed by Nitesh Tiwari, best known for directing Dangal (2016), the highest grossing Indian film to date. Tiwari has also directed Chhichhore (2019) and Bhoothnath Returns (2014).

For Malhotra, Ramayana isn’t just a movie; it’s a statement of self-belief. Every film that showed India to the world—Gandhi, Slumdog Millionaire, Life of Pi—showed the country as poor, chaotic, always the victim, he holds. “I don’t want to show that India. There’s a glorious India too—one of culture, spirituality, belief," he says.

Red & green flags

If the creative side of Prime Focus sparkles, its financials tell a harsher story. Over the past 10 years, the company has reported cumulative losses of ₹1,215 crore. Its debt has tripled. Interest payments alone, last year, were ₹538 crore, consuming nearly three-quarters of its operating profit.

For investors, the opacity of the company’s structure has been another red flag. Until recently, Prime Focus’ revenues were booked largely through DNEG overseas, while its Indian business showed profits from exceptional income tied to internal transactions. The company stopped publishing detailed debt breakdowns in 2021.

Malhotra, though, has a different air about him now—steady, even defiant. That confidence, say insiders, stems from one crucial shift: for the first time in years, he fully owns the company he built. Reliance MediaWorks, which once held a significant equity stake through its partnership with Prime Focus, completely exited in March 2021. Their departure, coupled with a complex global restructuring, has left Malhotra and his family as the controlling shareholders. “We have no institutional overlords anymore," says one senior executive who didn’t want to be identified. “That’s made all the difference to how Namit speaks and moves."

Malhotra himself frames it more simply. “The truth is, I’ve finally regained control," he says. “When Reliance was in, I was always negotiating—aligning, balancing. Now, I can focus purely on execution. We’re building for the long term, and the vision is crystal clear."

With Reliance gone, the Malhotra family now owns 60% of the company. Prime Focus has increased its stake in DNEG to 88%, offering shares in the Indian parent to earlier investors like Novator Capital in lieu of their DNEG holdings. “We have already outlined to investors that we’re simplifying our holding within the Indian entity," he says. “For the first time in years, everyone can see who owns what."

That simplification, long overdue, is also key to rebuilding investor trust. “Our perception has often been worse than our reality," Malhotra concedes. “The truth is that our reality is way better than what people perceive."

Last year, Abu Dhabi’s United Al Saqer Group invested $200 million in DNEG, valuing the company at $2 billion. “We raised money overseas because DNEG was valued better there," Malhotra says. “All our borrowings are dollar-denominated with international banks. We don’t borrow money in India."

To fund Ramayana, he adds, the company is drawing from those international facilities and its own cash flows. “It’s not like we’re spending the money in one day—it takes five years to make something like this," he says. “We’re investing partly from operating cash and partly from our limits. It’s a mix of equity and time."

Not everyone is convinced. “On the face of it, the numbers don’t add up," says a Mumbai-based fund manager who has pared his stake in recent months. “But DNEG’s Hollywood credentials are real, and somewhere you believe that Malhotra will eventually set right the financial reporting." The fund manager didn’t want to be identified.

Others take a more generous view. Bejoy Arputharaj, co-founder of the BSE-listed visual effects firm PhantomFX, says that while visual effects is a tough business, it’s not unremunerative. “If it were, none of us would survive. What’s important here is that they’re doing something spectacular for the Indian media business."

Problem of scale

Outside Malhotra’s studio bubble, the industry remains watchful, too. The two-part mythological epic—whose first instalment is due next year—is touted as the most expensive Indian film ever. Instead of universal awe, the scale has also sparked concern.

Satellite and streaming rights, once safety nets for expensive productions, are shrinking. Piracy remains rampant. And with India’s limited screen base—barely 5,000 screens for a nation of 1.4 billion—even the biggest hits can find their reach capped.

“That concern will be there with big-budget films, especially since some movies with massive investments haven’t succeeded despite doing reasonably well at the box office," says Rahul Puri, managing director of Mukta Arts and Mukta A2 Cinemas. “It boils down to some amount of disconnect with audiences."

An execution risk

Malhotra’s determination, however, is not merely patriotic. It is also deeply personal. Having endured crises that nearly wiped him out—the 2008 global meltdown, the pandemic, the Hollywood writers’ strike—he views risk as part of the game. “We were paying thousands of employees for doing nothing during the strike," he says. “That’s the existential risk. So, after all that, I’d rather take a risk that I control."

He sees Ramayana as “low risk" compared to what he did 15 years ago. Back then, he says, he was a garage startup funding Western companies at Indian cost of money—20% interest—when it should’ve been the other way around.

This time around, he is making the biggest epic in Indian cinema with big stars and the most loved characters. “If we mess it up, yes, we’ll pay the price. But that’s an execution risk."

Noise and reality

For all the spectacle, the business question remains: Can Prime Focus translate prestige into profits? Despite being the sixth-most-valued listed media company in India—after Sun TV, Zee Entertainment, Saregama, Network18, and Tips Industries—it is the only one among them that’s consistently loss-making. Its revenue base is large, but its cost base larger.

Malhotra insists that patience is key. “The payoff cycles in our business are longer," he says. “We invest in the movies we work on. We’re an investor in Angry Birds 3 with Paramount, for example. The payoff comes when the film releases."

Still, for investors used to predictable cash flows, Ramayana is a moonshot. “Everything hinges on perception," says a veteran fund manager. “If it works, Prime Focus will be re-rated overnight. If it fails, the stock could unravel as quickly as it rose."

For India Inc., Malhotra’s bet is more than cinematic ambition—it’s a test of whether creative scale can become strategic soft power. In a country still celebrated for its code and consulting, Ramayana offers something rarer: a story that asserts technological mastery and cultural confidence in the same breath. If it works, it could pull Indian storytelling out of its linguistic and geographic silos, and perhaps inspire other founders to think of creativity not as an export service, but as an owned asset.

If it fails, it will still stand as a daring reminder that one man, newly free from corporate overlords, tried to take a myth across oceans and make it global. In that alone, there’s a kind of victory.

In Malhotra’s office, on Hollywood Boulevard, framed posters of Inception and Dune hang beside concept art from Ramayana, underlining that message.

“What we’re doing is not about making noise," he reiterates. “It’s about showing the world that India can stand shoulder to shoulder with anyone."

(With inputs from Lata Jha)