A welcome nudge for DQ Entertainment to scale up

A welcome nudge for DQ Entertainment to scale upThe company is sitting pretty with an order book of $100 mn, set to hire 150 employees by March-end

The fledging Indian animation industry is growing at a fast clip scoring over its Asian peers by meeting delivery timelines and matching quality benchmarks.

The sector pegged at Rs 1,700 crore in 2008, is poised to touch Rs 3,900 crore by 2013, according to a Ficci-KPMG media and entertainment report. International production houses are splitting the production process between studios to cut down production time through parallel processing. This break up has proved to India’s advantage to grow as a outsourcing hub given the economies of scale.

Pure play animation player DQ Entertainment (DQE), is one of the beneficiaries of this trend toting up a robust order book of over $100 million till 2010-end. The company is upbeat about its international co-production deals despite the prevailing recessionary sentiment.

The company listed on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday signed a co-production deal with Europe’s independent animation firm Moonscoop Group to produce a 2-D animation TV series —Tara Duncan— based on the best-selling book by Sophie Audouin-Mamikonian.

Tara Duncan is a children’s fantasy series touted as Harry Potter’s little French sister. The series will have a global production budget of 6.4mn euros. M6, the second largest private French broadcaster and Disney, will be the broadcast partners for this production.

“We own 25% of worldwide profit-sharing rights for properties across TV, publication and merchandise for Moonscoop Group, M6 France and Disney Europe. DQE has the rights for 32 properties. We plan to grow it to 60 properties which is a mix of animation series, feature film live action formats like Iron Man, Tara Duncan etc by 2011,” said Tapaas Chakravarti, chairman & CEO, DQE Group.  

The company has also signed a deal with the group to produce a pseudo mythology film with a budget of Rs 30 crore for the Indian box office. The 100 minute CGI (computer-generated imagery) film will hit the theatres in 2010.

The contracts are a part of the five year co-production deal signed with Moonscoop to make five TV series and two feature films with production budgets of over $100 million.

The Hyderabad-headquartered animation company is eyeing a cross-country co-production deal with German, French and Asian TV groups to produce an animated series and feature films. The size of the deal is pegged at 10 million euros, said a source privy to the development. However, the deal is likely to be finalised later this month followed by an announcement in Cannes.

DQE is also lining up two more deals for producing an animation series —one for Spanish TV that is worth 6.5mn euros, while the second is with a French broadcaster that is estimated at 5.8 million euros.

The announcement comes close on the heels of the firm signing an exclusive licensing deal with Walt Disney Television International (Southeast Asia) for its CGI-animated series —Twisted Whiskers. The series will be aired on Disney Channel in 12 markets across the region in the coming months.

On the home turf, DQE is producing five animated features for television of 70 minutes each — three for Turner Networks Asia (TENA) and two for an undisclosed international broadcaster. “The movie series should fetch $6 million in the first year of its launch in 2010,” he added. Titled Balkand and Ravan, the animation features created and produced by DQE will premiere on TENA's children's channels' in India in April 2009. The firm has struck a deal with Turner for a mythology film.

The animation biggie has also bagged exclusive rights to make a three part TV feature on Satyajit Ray’s Feluda detective series. He wrote 35 Feluda stories which were first published in Bengali children’s magazine in 1965.

The first and the second part of the CGI series are under pre-production. “Depending on its success, we will make a feature film. This is a prime property and we are in a revenue-sharing model with the family. The first of the series will be launched this year. About 4-5 suitors have approached us for distribution rights. But we are yet to take a call on it,” added Chakravarti. Also in the pipeline is the animated series of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book.

To service big-ticket contracts, the firm is ramping up its headcount by 150 people by March-end. The company presently has 3,500 employees in India. “Bucking the downturn, we hired 300 in the last 3-4 months. Additional 150 employees will come on board this month. We are not looking at expanding our overseas studio presence as we want to channelise our funds into production and focus on deliveries,” he said.

Shilpa Phadnis / DNA-Daily News & Analysis Source: 3D Syndication

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