By Haricharan Pudipeddi
Chennai, April 25 (IANS) Trinity Pictures, which recently announced its first slate of movies for the year, is keen to penetrate the Indian market via franchise-based films across multiple genres, big budgets and languages.
It took Trinity Pictures, a subsidiary of Eros International, over one year to set up its studio.
"Traditionally, Eros was known for acquiring and distributing films. We, at, Trinity Pictures have planned to do things differently. We are probably the first to have a studio within a studio. It took us 13 months to set up everything and start rolling," Ajit Thakur, CEO, Trinity Pictures, told IANS.
To cater to audiences across markets, the company has lined up a bevy of character-driven franchise-based films.
"As a studio, we'd like to popularise franchise-based films which, in my opinion, are bigger than any stars. Instead of finding a subject and then hiring someone to direct it, we've set up a team of writers as part of Trinity's Writers' Room. They have already created over 10 original franchises," he said.
The franchise-based lineup includes an animal-based film, a children's action film and a Sino-Indian production, among others.
Over the next 12 months, the studio plans to take at least four to five projects into production.
"Well-known filmmakers such as Kabir Khan, Amole Gupte, Krish Jagarlamudi and Prabhu Solomon have already been roped in to direct some of these projects. We want to have a mix of directors from across the country to make films in various genres," he said, adding that some of these films will be made as bilinguals.
National Award-winning director Krish, for instance, has been brought on board to direct a buddy cop film.
"Krish's film will be shot in Hindi and Tamil simultaneously, featuring popular actors from Bollywood and south. The film has been written by Shridhar Raghavan, Dheeraj Rattan and K. Subhash," he said, adding another bilingual project will be the Elephant-based film which will be directed by Tamil director Prabhu Solomon.
Was zeroing in on the directors for the suitable scripts challenging?
"When we wanted a director for a kid's action film, we asked ourselves who has made the best children's film in the country. We could instantly think of Amole Gupte, and that's how he was roped in. For the buddy cop action film, we thought of Krish after he impressed with his work in Akshay Kumar-starrer 'Gabbar'," said Thakur.
"One of our Indo-China productions needs a star, and who else than Kabir Khan could direct the project. He has worked with Salman Khan and Saif Ali Khan, so he was our first choice. I've personally liked his action films," he added.
Similarly, Prabhu Solomon was chosen to direct the elephant-based after Thakur saw his Tamil film "Kumki", which was about a mahout and his elephant.
"More than finding the right director, we wanted someone who was passionate about the subject at hand. I was told Prabhu spent several years researching on elephants before he made 'Kumki'. When I watched the film, I knew he'd be more excited about this project than anyone else," he said.
Other projects in the pipeline include a film by Siddharth Anand which will explore a fresh take on the spy genre in India.
(Haricharan Pudipeddi can be contacted at haricharan.p@ians.in)
