Manmohan Shetty's iRock Media to focus on live-action, animation films

MUMBAI: Making its debut this month is a new boutique film development and production company iRock Media Pvt Ltd.

As was first reported by Businessofcinema.com earlier this month, the company is founded by Siddhartha M Jain, who headed the animation division at Adlabs Films.

Adlabs Films founder and former CMD Shetty is an angel investor and chairman of iRock. A total investment of Rs 100+ crore will be pumped for the production of films.

Shetty said, "I am very excited by the project slate of iRock and believe the company will soon create it’s own niche in the Indian film industry. The Indian film industry is in constant flux and an innovative content development approach is required to cater to the ever demanding Indian audiences."

Jain added, "I am very excited to have Mr. Shetty as a mentor and investor in this company. It is a dream opportunity and provides us with a fantastic platform. We will be producing ‘visually exciting’ content and want to be known for specific kind of content. iRock will invest in development of ‘high-concept’ film content in live-action and animation for the Indian audiences."

"The focus will be on technology dependent content which will be rich in animation and visual effects. Care will be taken to ensure a wide 360 degree exploitation plan for all our intellectual properties. Currently we have an exciting slate of 8 projects, of which two are animation and six are live action with VFX/animation," he added.

The company ‘s first animated feature film will be going into production in April. It is slated for release in 2009 and is the first one as part of a series of films based on the franchise. Details are to be announced shortly.

The second animated film is a sequel to and based on Bollywood’s cult comedy Andaz Apna Apna. The new script is currently being developed, which will be directed by a mainstream Bollywood director, who specialises in comedy.

In the live-action-VFX slate, Zudora will go in production this year. The film is based on the book by the same name and is a fantasy-magical adventure set in the mysterious world of Zudora. This too is a franchise property, which will be exploited across mediums.

Apart from Zudora, there are a couple of VFX dependent films currently in development. One of them is a fantasy-magical-war film, of epic proportions set in a parallel world. Comedy is another genre that iRock will focus on in live-action. They will be primarily in the mid-budget range and will introduce a couple of new directors.