WarnerMedia India, SEA and Korea, and Sony Pictures Entertainment Films India, exposed their co-production strategies in the coming years. At ATF 2021, spokespersons for both companies for these territories spoke about co-productions and interest in local IP to expand their footprints in these countries.
Vivek Krishnani, MD at Sony Pictures Entertainment Films India, said: ‘We have our eyes on the creation of Indian IPs. These can have mixed themes as well, but above all we want part of the content that we are creating for certain OTT platforms to have the ability to attract the public, not only Indian audiences, but audiences in all geographies’.
Krishnani mentioned that they will release 17 films in the next 12 months: ‘Sony is poised to capture the Indian theatrical market’. Among the titles, there are Looop Lapeta, the Indian adaptation of Run Lola Run; Helmet and Tera Kya Hoga Lovely.
Telling the importance of localization as a strategy in Southeast Asia, Clement Schwebig, Managing Director – India, Southeast Asia, Korea at WarnerMedia, said that localization is ‘beyond just having to produce local content’: ‘Having local teams on the ground that allows the company to build a brand that is locally relevant through multiple touchpoints that offer consumer engagement beyond the content. This presents possibilities for building a fan following, as well as discoverability of the brand and content’. He also remarked that having good and precise subtitling, which is often ‘undervalued’, is also key to allowing local audiences embrace foreign content.
