Growing studio controls its destiny

Toonz developing properties with partners

By PATRICK FRATER

The growth trajectory described by Kerala's Toonz Animation India is one that much of India's cartoon industry aspires to.

Toonz started out in 1999 as an animation subcontractor doing the unglamorous legwork for companies that controlled the creative process from the U.S. or elsewhere in Asia. But three years later it made a conscious decision to quit the service sector and take control of its own destiny. The gamble paid off, and Toonz is now courted by potential partners and negotiates its own deals with intellectual property owners and distributors. "We are no longer beggars," says founder and chairman Prabhakaran Jayakumar.

Proof of that is evident from Toonz's slate. Company is partnered with Hallmark on 78-episode kids serial "Finley, the Fire Truck," is hitched with Ashok Amritraj's Hyde Park on "The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus," and with Marvel on the $10 million "Wolverine and the X-Men" series. It recently delivered a direct-to-video feature, "Dragonlance," for Paramount Pictures.

"We went and licensed 'Wolverine' from Marvel, we are doing the production and the packaging," says Jayakumar. "On 'Dragonlance,' we went to Hasbro and it was us who approached Paramount."

Company also develops its own content for the Indian market, notably India's first homegrown animated series, "The Adventures of Tenali Raman," and "Geet Mahabarat." Alongside fellow Indian toon house Percept Pictures, it is now working in 3-D on a third feature in its "Hanuman" franchise.

Key to Toonz's ability to control its own intellectual property has been a willingness to bring its own financing to the table. That was underlined in January when it struck a deal with Standard Chartered Bank's Hong Kong-based entertainment division. Deal saw SCB provide gap finance and discount pre-sales (to the BBC and to a German company) equivalent to 45% of the budget. "Now we are looking at a bigger deal with SCB involving slate funding."

Jayakumar last year opened an academy in Mumbai. Intended to be a teaching facility, it may help address the company's eternal problem: finding enough good creatives.