MUMBAI: Indian animation studio, Cosmos-Maya and Arbaaz Khan Productions have come together to adapt the Dabangg franchise into an animated series. This news comes right in line with the tenth anniversary celebration of the film franchise that introduced the character of Chulbul ‘Robin Hood’ Pandey for the first time in 2010.
Disney+ Hotstar VIP will stream 104 episodes of the show on the platform. Dabangg is part of CM's strategy to bring in progressive disruption in the animation business. The arrival of the show will herald a new direction for the Singapore-based studio, with them being one of the first producers in the Indian animation space to successfully facilitate the transition of popular live-action characters that have become household names into animated spinoffs, giving that IP a great extension in terms of the audience they address. A partnership with such a brand allows Cosmos Maya tremendous scalability potential within the industry with multiple similar future projects that translate into much higher revenue potential.
Cosmos-Maya CEO Anish Mehta said, ”With Dabangg, we are venturing into untapped space in the Indian animation market in a narrative format that provides audiences with familiarity and novelty. With this project, Cosmos-Maya will enter a new market space where we get to give our spin to brand extensions of well-loved mainstream film franchises and characters, and will surely pave the way for a lot more prospects of a similar nature in the future, a plan which is already in motion with projects in partnership with three major Bollywood franchises planned for 2021. We are glad to have found a long-term business partner Disney+ Hotstar who started our relationship by onboarding 234 half-hour episodes of our immensely popular title Selfie With Bajrangi.”
Arbaaz Khan, producer and owner of the Dabangg franchise added, “It is great to have Cosmos-Maya on-board for bringing Chulbul into a fresh format. They understand the universe of Dabangg and we’re confident in the way they’ll get our characters to translate into a colourful format. It is a really exciting time for us and we can’t wait to see kids give the same ‘swaagat’ to Chulbul and his posse as audiences have done over the past decade.”
The show will feature animated avatars of all of the franchise’s characters. Targeted at kids and family audiences, season one will be launching in summer 2021.
