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BBC Films’ The Edge Of Love to open Edinburgh film festival
MUMBAI: BBC Films has announced that John Maybury‘s film The Edge Of Love, starring Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller, Cillian Murphy and Matthew Rhys, will have its World Premiere as the Opening Night film for this year‘s Edinburgh International Film Festival on 18 June 2008.
A love story, telling the story of two feisty, free-spirited women, Caitlin Thomas and Vera Killick, Vera‘s husband William Killick, and the brilliant, charismatic poet Dylan Thomas who loves both women, The Edge Of Love, produced by Sarah Radclyffeand Rebekah Gilbertson, will open in London on 20 June.
BBC Films has also announced that currently shooting in London, New York and Washington DC is Armando Iannucci‘s political comedy In The Loop, starring Tom Hollander, James Gandolfini, Chris Addison, Peter Capaldi, Gina McKee and Steve Coogan.
Also shooting in London is Jane Campion‘s Bright Star. Starring Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish, this is an exploration of the two-year relationship between the 18-year-old Fanny Brawne and 23-year-old romantic poet John Keats.
Lone Scherfig‘s An Education, starring Peter Sarsgaard, Carey Mulligan, Alfred Molina, Rosamund Pike and Emma Thompson, has just wrapped.
Nick Hornby wrote the script about a 17-year-old girl who meets an older man in Sixties London. Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey are going to produce, with Odyssey Entertainment handling worldwide sales.
Set to start principal photography in late May is Tom Hooper‘s The Damned United, from a screenplay by Peter Morgan, which tells the passionate and dramatic story of controversial and gifted football manager Brian Clough and his turbulent 44-day period in 1974 in charge of Leeds United.
Michael Sheen will star as Clough. Andy Harries produces with Sony Pictures Entertainment taking worldwide rights and Screen Yorkshire co-producing.
BBC Films‘ co-productions set for release later this summer and early Autumn include Saul Dibb‘s The Duchess starring Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes, Hayley Atwell, Charlotte Rampling and Dominic Cooper.
It is a contemporary tale of fame, notoriety and the search for love, based around that female icon of her time, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. Producers are Michael Kuhn and Gabrielle Tana.
Mark Herman‘s The Boy In Striped Pyjamas which is a co-production with Disney has been adapted by Herman from the best-selling book by John Boyne. This is a tale about what happens when innocence is confronted by monstrous evil. The cast includes Vera Falmiga and David Thewlis.
BBC Films also has a list of projects in post production. The most anticipated one is Sam Mendes‘ Revolutionary Road, based on the novel by Richard Yates. This re-unites five-time Oscar nominee Kate Winslet and three-time Oscar nominee Leonardo di Caprio for the first time since Titanic to play the leading roles in this story of thwarted passion and the search for fulfilment.
Jamie Thraves‘ psychological thriller Cry Of The Owl is an adaptation of the classic bestseller by Patricia Highsmith. It tells the story of Robert Forester (Paddy Considine), who moves to a small New York suburb in an attempt to escape the wreckage of his recent divorce. But everything changes when he begins to stalk his neighbour, Jenny Thierolf (Julia Stiles).
Hindi
GUEST COLUMN: Why film libraries & IPs are the new engines of growth
Unlocking value through catalogue strength and IP synergy
MUMBAI:In a media landscape defined by fragmentation, platform proliferation, and ever-evolving audience behavior, the economics of filmmaking are undergoing a fundamental shift. No longer confined to box office performance, a film’s true value is now measured across an extended lifecycle that spans digital platforms, syndication networks, and global markets. As content consumption becomes increasingly non-linear and algorithm-driven, film libraries and intellectual properties (IPs) are emerging as strategic assets, capable of delivering sustained, long-term returns. For Mohan Gopinath, head – bollywood business at Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd., this transformation signals a decisive move from hit-driven models to portfolio-led value creation. In this piece, Gopinath explores how legacy content, when intelligently repurposed and distributed, can unlock recurring revenue streams, why the interplay between catalogue and original IP is critical, and how media companies can build resilient, future-ready entertainment businesses.
For all these years, we thought that a film is successful if it performs well in theatres. There are opening weekend numbers, box office milestones, and distribution footprints that gave a good picture of how the movie has done commercially and also tell us about its cultural impact. However, there are multiple platforms today, always-on content ecosystem, which has caused a shift. Today, the theatrical performance is not the culmination of a film’s journey but merely the beginning of a much longer and more dynamic lifecycle.
Film libraries today are emerging as high-value, constantly evolving assets that deliver sustained returns well beyond initial release cycles. This becomes a point of great advantage for legacy content owners with diverse catalogues, to shape long-term business outcomes.
According to FICCI-EY, the media and entertainment industry of India achieved a valuation of Rs 2.78 trillion in 2025 which is expected to reach Rs 3.3 trillion by 2028 through a compound annual growth rate of approximately 7 per cent and digital media will bring in more than Rs 1 trillion to become the biggest sector which generates about 36 per cent of overall market revenues.
This shift is the expansion of distribution endpoints. We know how satellite television was once the primary secondary window but today, it coexists with YouTube, OTT platforms, Connected TV, and FAST channels. Each of these platforms caters to distinct audience demographics and consumption behaviors, helping content owners to obtain more value from the same asset across multiple formats.
For instance, films that had great reruns, now find continuous engagement across digital platforms. On YouTube, classic Hindi cinema continues to attract significant viewership, reaching audiences across generations and geographies with remarkable consistency. At Shemaroo Entertainment, this is reflected in our film library shaped over decades as part of a long association with Indian entertainment. From classics such as Amar Akbar Anthony to much-loved entertainers like Jab We Met, Welcome, Dhamaal, Phir Hera Pheri, Dhol, Golmaal, and Bhagam Bhag, many of these titles continue finding new audiences while retaining their place in popular memory. Their enduring appeal reflects how culturally resonant stories can continue creating value over time. Similarly, FAST channels have created curated, always-on environments where catalogue content can continue to thrive through star-led and genre-based programming.
This multi-platform approach has very well transformed films into long-tail IP assets which are capable of generating recurring revenue across advertising, subscription, and syndication models.
The evolution of audience behavior is equally important. Nowadays, it’s more important to find what’s more relative than what’s recent as viewers are more influenced by mood, memories, and algorithmic suggestions than by release schedules. Even if a movie was released decades ago, it can trend alongside a newly released movie, if surfaced in the right context. Thoughtful packaging, whether through festival-based playlists, actor-driven collections, or genre clusters, allows catalogue content to remain dynamic and continuously discoverable. Shemaroo Entertainment has built extensive film libraries over decades and its focus has mostly been on recontextualizing content for the consumption of newer environments. This process doesn’t just include digitization and restoration, but also re-packaging of films as per platforms.
Syndication itself has evolved into a key growth driver. In perspective, when looking at the domestic market, curated content packages continue to find strong demand across broadcast and digital platforms. Meanwhile, in the international market, especially in markets like Middle East, North America and Southeast Asia, the appetite for Indian content is opening up new monetization avenues. Here, the ability to package and position catalogue content effectively becomes as important as the content itself.
Importantly, the need to re-package catalogue content does not diminish the role of new content. In fact, originals and fresh IP are essential to sustaining the long-term value of a film library because they act as discovery engines that bring audiences into the ecosystem, while catalogue content drives depth, retention, and repeat engagement.
This interplay between the “new” and the “known” is what defines a robust content strategy today. While new films generate spikes in consumption, catalogue titles offer familiarity and comfort. These are factors that are increasingly valuable in an era of content abundance and decision fatigue. This is also shaping our strategy, drawing value from both a deep catalogue assets and a growing focus on original IPs to strengthen long-term audience engagement and build more predictable revenue streams.
There is growing recognition that long-term value in entertainment will be shaped not only by how intelligently existing content continues to live, travel and find relevance, but also by how consistently new stories are created to renew that ecosystem. In that sense, film libraries and original IP are not parallel bets, but reinforcing engines of growth. For media companies, the opportunity lies in making these two forces work together, because that is increasingly where more resilient and predictable businesses are being shaped.
Note: The views expressed in this article are solely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect our own.
