Picks up streaming rights to 104 episodes of new animated series based on hit Bollywood franchise
Disney+Hotstar Acquires Cosmos Maya & Arbaaz Khan’s DABANGG Animated Series
India’s largest premium streaming platform Disney+ Hotstar has acquired the streaming rights to 104 episodes of Cosmos-Maya’ and Arbaaz Khan Productions’s new family show Dabangg, a first-of-its-kind animated series based on the hugely successful Bollywood franchise of the same name.
The agreement coincides with the 10th anniversary of the film franchise which introduced the character of Chulbul ‘Robin Hood’ Pandey for the first time in 2010. The first season of 52 half hours will start airing in Summer 2021 on Disney+ Hotstar which has 400 million viewers, eight million paying subscribers and additional library content from Disney+, making it the most prolific OTT platform in India both in terms of subscribers and content.
The animated series chronicles the day-to-day life of Police Officer Chulbul Pandey (played by Salman Khan in the films). Backed at each step by his entourage, he stands in the face of evil to keep the city safe. Fighting evil is a tough job but whatever the situation may be, Chulbul always has the time to lighten up the mood with his jokes, limericks, and one-liners. Chulbul is joined by his endearing younger brother Makkhi (played by Arbaaz Khan in the films), who is new in the police force and keeps trying to emulate him.
The show will feature the animated avatars of all iconic characters of the franchise including the three antagonists Chhedi Singh, Bachcha Bhaiya and Baali Rajjo (played by Sonakshi Sinha in the films), alongside Prajapati Ji (played by the late Vinod Khanna in the films) and the ‘BhaiyaJi Ismile’ guy.
Anish Mehta, CEO of Cosmos-Maya, 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 where we get to give our spin to brand extensions of well-loved mainstream film franchises and characters, and will 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 which 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 commented: “It is great to have Cosmos-Maya on-board to bring 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.”
Cosmos-Maya is Asia’s leading kids’ animation studio with 18 series on air globally and a 60% domestic market share in India.
