Film Production
Balaji readies weekend serials
On the back of what has been a tremendously successful year for the Jeetendra Kapoor family-promoted Balaji Telefilms, the production house is expanding into new genres and time bands.
Among the more high-profile offerings that the Balaji stable is readying is a 39-part weekend series that is going on air within the next two months on “one of the top satellite channels,” CEO and managing director Shobha Kapoor said today, at an analysts’ meeting in south Mumbai outlining the company’s plans.
Slated to run as a one-hour show on Friday’s, Saturday’s and Sunday’s, Kapoor said it would be a high-cost production that would run for a total of 13 weeks. Another show that was launching in the weekend slot was a kid’s serial that would air on Sundays loosely modelled on a Superman like character, Kapoor said.
Rajesh Pavithran, vice-president – marketing, who gave a run down of the company’s plans said the company was increasingly focussed on increasing the number of commissioned programmes that it produced and was now restricting its programmes in the sponsored category to work it did for the southern language Sun Network.
Pavithran said that after making its presence felt in all the main southern language channels (Tamil, Telugu, Kannada), Balaji was next looking to enter Malayalam language programming on the Sun Network’s Surya channel.
The coming year would also see Balaji entering Punjabi and Bengali language programming, Pavithran said.
A point that was made during the briefing was that Balaji’s top three shows on Star Plus contributed 30 per cent of the company’s revenues. Pavithran also stressed that there was a big enough spread in the company’s programming base that no show contributed more than 15 per cent of revenues. One can assume that Hindi entertainment television’s top soap Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi (KSBKBT) would be contributing the 15 per cent. Jeetendra Kapoor said that KSBKBT’s current sale price to Star was Rs 1,000,000 per episode. The numbers are revealing when one considers that when KSBKBT launched it was sold to Star at Rs 125,000 per episode. Average production cost per episode however, has only gone up 10 per cent, Jeetendra Kapoor said. Now that’s called tight cost control.
Film Production
Arka Mediaworks onboards 88 Pictures as animation studio partner on ‘The Eternal War – Part 1’
Arka Mediaworks announces that 88 Pictures, the acclaimed animation and visual storytelling studio known for its cutting-edge CGI and cinematic artistry, is on board as the animation partner for the highly anticipated Baahubali: The Eternal War, a groundbreaking two-part 3D animated feature film set in the globally beloved Baahubali universe.
Baahubali: The Eternal War represents a bold new chapter in the Baahubali saga envisioned for national and international audiences and crafted with the ambition of delivering one of India’s most ambitious and globally benchmarked animation projects to date.
88 Pictures will execute the animation production, bringing to life the film’s richly detailed worlds, epic battle sequences, and larger-than-life characters with its signature blend of artistic vision, performance-driven animation, and advanced production pipelines. Working closely with the film’s creative leadership and technical partners, the studio aims to set new benchmarks in animation quality, cinematic storytelling, and global scalability.
This animated epic follows the successful re-release of Baahubali: The Epic (the combined theatrical version of the original live-action films) on 31 October 2025 across India and the USA. During the film’s interval, legendary creator and director S.S. Rajamouli (Baahubali 1 & 2, RRR) stunned audiences with a surprise teaser for The Eternal War – Part 1. The video immediately went viral, garnering widespread national and international acclaim across LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube for its ambitious visual style and scale.
Produced by Arka Mediaworks and led by co-founder and CEO Shobu Yarlagadda – producer of the iconic Baahubali duology, The Eternal War brings together fantastic storytelling and cutting-edge animation.. The film is directed and written by acclaimed animation filmmaker Ishan Shukla (Schirkoa: In Lies We Trust, Star Wars: Visions – “The Bandits of Golak”) and screenplay by Scott Mosier (The Grinch). Mihira Visual Labs, the studio co-founded by Yarlagadda anchors the film’s animation, visual development, and execution.
The partnership with 88 Pictures brings significant pedigree to the project; the studio is well-regarded for its work on high-profile international titles including DreamWorks’ series Trollhunters, the HBO Max original series Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai, Disney’s animated short An Almost Christmas Story to name a few.
Yarlagadda shared, “We are happy to onboard 88 Pictures as the animation studio partner for our prestigious and most expensive animated film from India. We believe that their expertise and capabilities will allow us to produce a first-of-its-kind, world-class animated feature film from India.”
88 Pictures founder & CEO Milind D. Shinde said, “Baahubali changed the way cinema is perceived and became a defining milestone that turned the tide for Indian live-action filmmaking. Expanding the franchise into an entirely new universe—at a never-seen, never-done scale—through an animated feature created in India for a global audience is set to redefine how the world views Indian animation. We are truly thrilled to be part of this landmark project and to bring it to life under the visionary direction of Ishan Shukla, guided by the experience and leadership of acclaimed producer Shobu Yarlagadda.”
Shukla expressed, “Eternal War requires a level of visual and emotional precision that can only come from teams who truly understand both craft and intent. Working with 88 Pictures, alongside Mihira Visual Labs, has been a deeply collaborative experience. This association brings together technical excellence and creative sensitivity, enabling us to translate an ambitious vision into a compelling cinematic reality.”
Baahubali: The Eternal War – Part 1 is scheduled for release in 2027
