NEW DELHI: The success of animation films ‘Pandavas’, ‘Hanuman’ and ‘Shri Krishna’ has made filmmakers realize that Indian audiences accept characters from our epics.

And it is also clear that the character has to be someone with either superhuman powers or extraordinary guts. Expectedly, the next animation film features Ghatothkach, son of Bhim and Hidimbi from the ‘Mahabharata’ as the hero.

‘Ghatothkach’- Master of Magic, lovingly called “Ghattu”, is about the magical escapades of Bhim’s son. The film will not only have magic, action, romance, comedy, and fantasy and but also foot-tapping songs.

The film has been directed by Singeetam Srinivasa Rao who has been the director of several internationally acclaimed films, experimenting with unique subjects and platforms over a span of 50 years and across 60-odd films in his career. He is known for his innovative children’s films “Little John” and “Son of Alladin” a 3-D animated film. Other films include the dialogue-less film ‘Pushpak’ with Kamal Hassan and Amala, ‘Appu Raja’ again with Kamal Hassan, and ‘Mayuri’ on Sudhachandran’s own story.

Shemaroo’s Vice-President Heren Gada said in a statement here that ‘As a content house, creation of content is the next step of us. In line with this strategy, we have ventured into creation of live-action and animation among other content. We look to bring unique entertainment genres across the various platforms that audience will love to consume.’

Smita Maroo, Vice-President of the Animation Division at Shemaroo, said: ‘we were looking for some innovative project when we came across Director –Singeetam Srinivasa Rao. Mr. Rao mentioned that he was directing “Ghatothkach” which was under production at the Hyderabad-based Sun Animatics. The character of Ghatothkach and the script brought out the inner child in us and we were totally fascinated’.