Mumbai: Viacom18 Motion Pictures has appointed Jayesh Muzumdar to head its regional film business, a space the company is foraying into.
This will be Mazumdar‘s additional responsibility as he is also Viacom18 Motion Pictures‘ director- commercial affairs.
In his new role, he will be reporting to Viacom18 Motion Pictures COO Vikram Malhotra, who is serving his notice period at the company till July.
As reported by Indiantelevision.com earlier, Viacom18 Motion pictures is making its foray into the regional cinema space with a robust slate for 2013.
This move comes in the light of the brand’s vision to be a pan India studio and hence reach out to the audiences who consume cinema in varied regional languages.
The studio will be reaching out to audiences across markets and will launch new movies in five languages.
Viacom18 group CEO Sudhanshu Vats said, “Foraying into regional cinema is in line with our vision for Viacom18 to have a strong presence in the regional entertainment space - both television as well as films. Geographic and linguistic segmentation is a key component of our growth strategy as we move ahead, and the good news is that we’ve already firmed our plans in five key regional markets. As we move into other languages, we hope to replicate our model and success in those markets as well.”
In its inception stage, the studio’s regional division has a pipeline of six movies across Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Punjabi and Bengali.
The Tamil and Telugu titles include the remake of the studio’s 2012 hit ‘Kahaani’. The remake will be directed by Shekhar Kammula and stars superstar ‘Nayanthara’.
The Marathi movies include the sequel to the popular hit ‘Zapatlela’, which would make it Marathi cinema’s first sequel and 3D film; 72 Miles, a movie based on the commercially successful novel of the same name and directed by the award-winning director Rajiv Patil; and ‘Kumari Gangubai Non-Matric’ that brings a TV character on the big screen for the first time.
‘Bhitu’, creatively produced by Neeraj Pandey and starring the Bengali superstar Jeet and ‘Reunion’ (working title) creatively produced by Sujoy Ghosh are the movies lined up in Bengali.
‘Bhajji in Problem’ is a Punjabi film featuring Punjabi superstar Gippy Grewal and directed by Smeet Kang. This film will also feature cricketer Harbhajan Singh, Honey Singh and Akshay Kumar (in a cameo) as part of the cast.
Viacom18 Motion Pictures COO Vikram Malhotra said, “We are now firmly on the path of our ambition to be a pan-India movie studio. With incremental growth coming from regional markets, Viacom18 Motion Pictures will now extend its understanding of path-breaking content and innovative marketing skills to connect with regional audiences. Our partnerships with best-in-class talent across languages underscores the trust and belief that our creative partners put behind our studio".
