Mumbai: Streaming platform Zee5 has announced a strategic partnership with content and IP studio Applause Entertainment, a venture of Aditya Birla Group for a multi-show association. The two content companies will collaborate to create a robust original content slate of new Zee5 originals in Hindi across genres to entertain viewers across the globe.
The first offering as part of the partnership is titled "Kaun Banegi Shikharwati’"– a dramedy series with a unique take on a dysfunctional royal family. The show will be produced by Applause Entertainment in association with Emmay Entertainment and directed by Gauravv Chawla and Ananya Banerjee. The original will premiere exclusively on Zee5 in January 2022.
“Over the last four years, Applause has created a diverse slate of content and explored stories across genres, languages, and geographies. We are thrilled that our first outing with Zee5 is with Kaun Banegi Shikarwati, a light-hearted, heart-warming dramedy that is both quirky and delightful and boasts a stellar cast of actors. We look forward to a long and fruitful partnership with Zee5 and help contribute in a small way to their global ambition,” said Applause Entertainment CEO Sameer Nair.
Zeel president-content and international markets Punit Misra said, “Zee5’s content design principles centre around intimately knowing our viewers and building a bouquet of engaging and entertaining offerings for our multiple consumer cohorts. While Consumer Intimacy is at the heart of our content creation philosophy, our Content Creator Partners are the other crucial pillar in our approach.”
"In 2021, Zee5 has made a concerted effort to associate with premium content creators across languages and genres, a move that has enabled us to inch closer to our overall vision of ‘Entertainment inclusion’," said Zee5 India chief business officer Manish Kalra. "Applause Entertainment has had a strong record of creating some of the most popular shows of recent times and with this association, Zee5 is confident of enriching our content slate even further."
The move is in line with Zee5’s content-first approach of forging more partnerships within the creative ecosystem to build a diverse slate of originals and movies. The platform had earlier sealed partnerships with TVF (The Viral Fever), Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari and Nitesh Tiwari, and Red Chillies Entertainment to deliver several new shows across the digital entertainment ecosystem.
"Kaun Banegi Shikharwati’" features a spectacular cast of renowned Bollywood faces, including Naseeruddin Shah essaying the role of a King while Lara Dutta Bhupathi, Soha Ali Khan, Kritika Kamra, Anya Singh play his daughters, and Raghubir Yadav, Cyrus Sahukar, Varun Thakur and Anurag Sinha play key roles.
Elaborating on the new show, Emmay Entertainment producer Nikkhil Advani said, “Kaun Banegi Shikarwati offers a quintessential story of Indian families that’s replete with oddities and conflicts. But at the core of it, lies unfiltered emotions that are sure to resonate strongly with the masses."
Zee5 chief creative officer- Hindi Originals Nimisha Pandey said there is an increasing need for family-viewing content in a post-pandemic era and a multi-dimensional drama like "Kaun Banegi Shikharwati’" works beautifully in that aspect. "We hope that the audience enjoys the roller coaster of emotions with this series," she added.
