MAM
Chakra movies to air on Toonami; Astra Force coming soon
MUMBAI: After its successful debut on Cartoon Network in 2013, Graphic India and Stan Lee’s “Chakra The Invincible” is back with three new installments of “Made for TV” movies for Turner International. Chakra is the brainchild Graphic India’s Sharad Devarajan, and POW Entertainment founder Stan Lee, who is credited with creating billion-dollar character intellectual properties such as the Spider-Man, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Daredevil, Thor and the X-Men.
Sixty to 70 mins long, the first of the three installments, Chakra Rise of the Infinitus, was aired on Turner’s Toonami last Sunday, while the second and third animated movies are scheduled for December-end and first half of 2017.
“The movie will subsequently be aired on other Turner channels such as Cartoon Network,” said Devarajan. “I have had a great long-standing partnership with Krishna Desai who heads Turner’s kids content division. He is a true fan of comics books; Stan Lee and I saw the true potential for this kind of unique content,” Devarajan added on choosing Turner as the broadcast partner.
To make the content travel to regional markets as well, the movies have been produced in English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu feeds. Apart from its TV broadcasts in India, Graphic India is largely looking into syndicating the TV movies to other international markets. “Our partnership is only for the Indian market, but Graphic India is aggressively expanding to other markets with foreign broadcasting partners as well. We have already partnered with Angry Birds creators, Rovio Entertainment, and its digital platform ToonsTV, making Chakra as the first third-party character to have launched on the platform.”
The character received a warm welcome from the fan boys in the United States. “Kids from the mid-west America have been found dressing up as an Indian superhero in cosplay conventions and birthday parties — that is how popular it is in the western markets,” Devarajan shared, adding that 100,000 copies of the comic book have been distributed in the North American market.
Devarajan also has big plans to market the character in India, starting in the next two to three months which will tied to the promotion of the live action Bollywood film inspired by Chakra, announced by Phantom Films (in 2017).
“We will be pushing the distribution of the comic book, organise live events, and ensure that Chakra has a visibility in games, merchandise and promotions deals with brands in India.”
Devarajan shied away from discussing the actual budget of the latest series of TV movies, but he reassured that they have scaled up the production.
“Now that we are getting international market attention about distribution, the more we move to multi-market, the scope of expanding both, scale and budget, increases. Working only in the Indian market gives us limited options, but when foreign players are willing to invest, we naturally consider a higher budget,” he added.
Apart from Chakra The Invincible, Graphic India will also see its long-announced animated series “Astra Force” (featuring an animated Amitabh Bachchan) see the light of the day this year-end with Disney India being the broadcast partner.
Digital
Content India 2026 opens with a copro pitch, a spice evangelist and a £10,000 prize for Indian storytelling
Dish TV and C21Media’s three-day summit puts seven ambitious projects before an international jury, and two walk away with serious development money
MUMBAI: India’s content industry gathered in Mumbai this March for Content India 2026, a three-day summit organised by Dish TV in partnership with C21Media, and it wasted no time making a statement. The event opened with a Copro Pitch that put seven scripted and unscripted television concepts before an international panel of judges, and by the end of it, two projects had walked away with £10,000 each in marketing prize money from C21Media to support development and international promotion.
The jury, comprising Frank Spotnitz, Fiona Campbell, Rashmi Bajpai, Bal Samra and Rachel Glaister, evaluated a shortlist that ranged from a dark Mumbai comedy-drama about mental health (Dirty Minds, created by Sundar Aaron) to a Delhi coming-of-age mystery (Djinn Patrol, by Neha Sharma and Kilian Irwin), a techno-thriller about a teenage gaming prodigy (Kanpur X Satori, by Suchita Bhatia), an investigative crime drama blending mythology and modern thriller (The Age of Kali, by Shivani Bhatija), a documentary on India’s spice heritage (The Masala Quest, hosted by Sarina Kamini), a documentary on competitive gaming (Respawn: India’s Esports Revolution, by George Mangala Thomas and Sangram Mawari), and a reality-horror competition merging gaming and immersive fear (Scary Goose, by Samar Iqbal).
The session was hosted by Mayank Shekhar.
The two winners were Djinn Patrol, backed by Miura Kite, formerly of Participant Media and known for Chinatown and Keep Sweet: Pray & Obey, with Jaya Entertainment, producers of Real Kashmir Football Club, also attached; and The Masala Quest, created and hosted by Sarina Kamini, an Indian-Australian cook, author and self-described “spice evangelist.”
The summit also unveiled the Content India Trends Report, whose findings made for bracing reading. Daoud Jackson, senior analyst at OMDIA, set the tone: “By 2030, online video in India will nearly double the revenue of traditional TV, becoming the main driver of growth.” He noted that in 2025, India produced a quarter of all YouTube videos globally, overtaking the United States, while Indians collectively spend 117 years daily on YouTube and 72 years on Instagram. Traditional subscription TV is declining as free TV and connected TV gain ground, forcing broadcasters to innovate. “AI-generated content is just 2 per cent of engagement,” Jackson added, “highlighting the dominance of high-quality human content. The key for Indian media companies is scaling while monetising effectively from day one.”
Hannah Walsh, principal analyst at Ampere Analysis, added hard numbers to the picture. India produced over 24,000 titles in January 2026 alone, with 19,000 available internationally. The country now accounts for 12 per cent of Asia-Pacific content spend, up from 8 per cent in 2021, outpacing both Japan and China. Key exporters include JioStar, Zee Entertainment, Sony India, Amazon and Netflix, delivering over 7,500 Indian-produced titles abroad each year. The top importing markets are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, the United States and the Philippines. Scripted content dominates globally at 88 per cent, with crime dramas and children’s and family titles performing particularly strongly.
Manoj Dobhal, chief executive and executive director of Dish TV India, framed the summit’s ambition squarely. “Stories don’t need translation. They need a platform, discovery, and reach, local or global,” he said. “India produces more movies than any country, our streaming platforms compete globally, and our tech and creators win international awards. Yet fragmentation slows growth. Producers, platforms, and tech move in different lanes. We need shared spaces, collaboration, and an ecosystem where ideas, technology, and people meet. That is why we built Content India.”
The data, the pitches and the prize money all pointed to the same conclusion: India is not waiting for the world to discover its stories. It is building the infrastructure to sell them.
