Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla honoured with Lata Deenanath Mangeshkar Award 2025
The Lata Deenanath Mangeshkar Puraskar was instituted in 2022 in memory of the late legendary singer by the Master Deenanath Mangeshkar Smruti Pratishthan, a public charitable trust maintained by the Mangeshkar family for over 35 years.
Speaking ahead of the ceremony, Hridaynath Mangeshkar shared, 'Each year, we honour individuals who embody the spirit of dedication, excellence, and service that Master Deenanathji lived by. This celebration is not just a tribute to the past, but a torch passed on to the present and future.'
First Published: 24 Apr 2025, 09:57 PM IST
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Time of India
2 days ago
- Time of India
From Scam to Sagas: Applause expands slate with Archer titles
As streaming platforms ramp up their demand for scalable IP and cross-market appeal, Indian content studios are increasingly looking beyond domestic formats and entering the global literary market. Applause Entertainment , backed by the Aditya Birla Group , is the latest to make a move, acquiring exclusive screen rights to six novels by British author Jeffrey Archer . The acquisition, which includes The Clifton Chronicles, Fourth Estate, First Among Equals, The Eleventh Commandment, Sons of Fortune, and Heads You Win , marks Applause's first foray into global fiction IP . While notable, the development fits into a broader trend of Indian studios building slates that can travel across languages, territories, and platforms. Applause plans to adapt them as series and films across multiple Indian languages and distribution platforms, including global streaming services. 'We have just closed the deal and now we are getting started in earnest,' said Sameer Nair, managing director of Applause Entertainment. 'We want to move fast. The idea is to identify a showrunner or creative director for each title and begin working on adaptation, deciding the context, setting, and treatment.' Nair added that the studio hopes to have at least one or two properties entering the pre-production phase in the next three to six months. 'Everything we develop will be run past Jeffrey Archer and will go through our own iteration process. We want to make sure we're doing justice to the original material, while also adapting it meaningfully for screen,' he said. From local books to global IP Applause's earlier successes have largely come from Indian non-fiction adaptations like Scam 1992 and Black Warrant and scripted versions of international formats including Criminal Justice, Hostages, Call My Agent . This move into global fiction marks a strategic expansion geared toward meeting a rising demand for high-concept IP that can be localised but is inherently global in theme and structure. 'Jeffrey Archer's stories are sagas, not single-incident plots,' said Nair. 'They lend themselves to both long-form drama and feature films, depending on how we reimagine them.' While Archer's books are widely read in India, Nair acknowledged that a large segment of India's tier II and tier III viewers may not be familiar with them. 'The larger Indian mass has not heard these stories. That's the excitement you can take these stories to them. Once it comes on a streamer or platform, it reaches,' he said. He drew a parallel with Scam 1992, which was based on Sucheta Dalal and Debashis Basu's book The Scam. 'I don't think many people had read the book before the show came out, but more people saw the show. Hopefully, that encouraged some to go read the book,' Nair said. 'We only used a small part of it but the book itself is far deeper.' Stabilising and expanding Applause's expansion comes at a time when the Indian content market is undergoing a cost correction, following years of aggressive investment between 2020 and 2023. Several production houses were forced to scale back due to unsustainable content spends and shifting platform strategies. However, Applause has avoided major disruption by maintaining cost discipline. 'We've always been frugal,' said Nair. 'When others were spending INR 100-INR 200 crore on a single show, we were building profitable units. All our projects aim to recover cost and make a margin. That allows us to reinvest continuously.' He estimated that the company has already invested and reinvested over INR 2,500–INR 3,000 crore and continues to operate on a reinvestment-led growth model. 'There's no fixed number for how much we will invest in the next two years,' Nair said. 'We just keep doing it.' Applause evaluates all projects on a unit economics basis, aiming for profitability at the project level rather than relying solely on large upfront investments or slate deals. While budgets have come under pressure, Nair said the overall outlook for the industry is positive. 'There was a lot of pressure on content cost in the past couple of years, but now things are levelling out. It's fair, platforms also need to be profitable,' he said. Alongside the literary acquisition, Applause is also diversifying its production slate with a growing focus on theatrical films and digital-first animation . The company has signed filmmakers Kabir Khan and Imtiaz Ali for upcoming Hindi projects and is producing a Tamil feature film Bison with director Mari Selvaraj, targeted for release around Diwali. Nair said the move into theatrical films is a natural extension of the studio's capabilities. 'Hopefully, in the next couple of years, you'll see us as a major movie studio,' he said. In the kids content space, Applause launched a YouTube channel ApplaToon earlier this year, leveraging its animation rights to Amar Chitra Katha 's intellectual property. The channel, aimed at a digital-first audience, focuses on mythological and historical narratives. 'YouTube turned out to be the most effective distribution channel for children's content,' Nair said. 'Many streamers and broadcasters are currently re-evaluating their kids' programming slates, but YouTube remains consistent. We've made a strong start and we plan to build aggressively in that direction.' For Applause, the Archer collaboration is not a one-off prestige play, but part of a deliberate expansion into IP-driven content development. 'This is a milestone moment for us,' Nair added. 'To reimagine these stories with scale and style, and position them for audiences across the globe, that's the creative opportunity we're excited about.'
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Business Standard
3 days ago
- Business Standard
Applause Entertainment acquires rights to six novels of Jeffrey Archer
Applause Entertainment, a content and intellectual property (IP) creation studio from the Aditya Birla Group, has acquired the rights to six novels by author Jeffrey Archer to adapt the books into series and films for an undisclosed amount. The six novels include The Clifton Chronicles, Fourth Estate, First Among Equals, The Eleventh Commandment, Sons of Fortune, and Heads You Win, the company announced in a press conference on Monday. This marks Applause Entertainment's first global fiction book acquisition. The company, which focuses on premium drama series, movies, documentaries, and animation content, will expand its genres with the adaptation of these six books, covering political drama, espionage, media power struggles, and multi-generational family sagas, according to its release. Sameer Nair, Managing Director of Applause Entertainment, which has produced shows like The Hunt: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case, Black Warrant, the Criminal Justice franchise, and the Scam franchise, told Business Standard that work on the six books will begin immediately and simultaneously. Depending on the director and their vision, the books could be adapted into series or films across platforms or other languages, he added. While Nair did not disclose the financial details of the rights for the six books, he noted that they were comparable to international standards. 'It's an absolute pleasure to collaborate with Sameer Nair and the team at Applause Entertainment. Their passion for storytelling, their body of work, and their global outlook make them the perfect partners to bring my books to screen,' Archer said in a statement. 'I've always had a deep fondness for India, a nation that has embraced my stories like its own, and as an ardent cricket lover, it's a country I feel incredibly connected to. I'm thrilled to see my characters and stories take on a new life, across India, and far beyond.' In the press conference, Nair highlighted that the availability of a vast range of content and the streaming boom in India were among the major factors that helped the company collaborate with Archer and adapt his books for audiences across the globe. 'Whatever we create, he (Archer) will see some sort of return on that, and he is very interested in how it all plays out (adaptation of Archer's books). I am hoping that this becomes a long-term deal, and I am hoping that we get to work on his other books as well,' said Nair.
Hindustan Times
4 days ago
- Hindustan Times
A spoof on Caligula's quirks and streaks of violence
MUMBAI: Theatre director Sunil Shanbag has a penchant for staging historical and semi-historical incidents to put the spotlight on contemporary times. Last year, he produced and directed the Utpal Dutt-written 'Barricade', which exposed Hitler's strategies for winning majority votes through a ruthless crushing of dissenters and a well-oiled propaganda machinery. This year, Shanbag will be showcasing 'The Horse', for Aadyam Theatre, an Aditya Birla Group initiative, which spoofs the Roman emperor Caligula's idiosyncrasies and streaks of violence. 'The Horse' is based on Hungarian playwright Julius Hay's play by the same name, written in 1962. A spoof on Caligula's quirks and streaks of violence Shanbag first read Hay's play in 1982 and, ever since, he has wanted to stage it but did not have the means earlier for mounting the large-scale production. 'The play struck me as a wonderful example of a biting satire, lampooning authoritative absurdity, blind sycophancy and the complicity of the elite; and I am very happy that I am able to stage it now,' he states, during a break in a rehearsal. Senior actor Akash Khurana, who essays the role of Caligula, says power and neurosis are the operative words for him are to understand the psyche of a man who has been looked upon differently by different people. Both characteristics are evident at the rehearsal, where his boot-licking coterie are seen horsing around, encouraging his mad ventures. Galloping across the floor to Kaizad Gherda's lively music, Caligula's sycophants celebrate the appointment of a horse that the whimsical emperor won in gambling, as Consul. Ridiculous obsequiousness is taken to another level when one toady suggests they should get the best of mares to please the new Consul. What is the play's relevance in today's times? 'History keeps repeating itself, so the play resonates with the audience in whichever period authoritarianism asserts itself,' replies Shanbag. 'Hay was responding to the occupation of East Europe by the USSR, while my version of his play, today, reflects a global phenomenon. I think the situation all over the world today is very scary and it is important to respond to that.' According to Shanbag, the horse in the play could stand for anything or anybody. 'The idea is to show something or someone as so sacred that it loses all perspective. The play is about our willingness to totally suspend rationality,' he states. While dramatists like William Shakespeare have depicted power-hungry figures through tragedies, Shanbag has chosen to present Caligula through a farcical comedy. 'I think contemporary theatre does not have enough comedies to project serious subjects,' he observes. 'But comedy can be a very powerful means of saying something important. 'The Horse' is a crazy, over-the-top comedy that tells a semi-fictitious, historical story to understand current times. Using humour and satire, it sharply dissects the absurdity of a world hurtling towards chaos.' Accentuating the underlying satire of the play are its songs, written by Asif Ali Beg who says it was a challenge for him to write them. 'I had not worked in the genre of political satire before this,' he points out. But discussions with Shanbag and background reading helped him to deliver just what was required. So, even in a tipsy scene in a tavern, the tipplers mouth words about Rome's decline. Written in limerick form, the song combines the lightness of a drunken ambience with the sharpness of satire. Putting Beg's words to music is Kaizad Gherda who has also composed the background score for some of the scenes. 'What I have composed is both grand and playful, mirroring the grandeur that was Rome and the farce that plays out against it,' shares Gherda. Adding to the entertainment quotient are choreographers and movement directors Shampa Gopikrishna and Bertwin Ravi Dsouza. 'After detailed discussions with Shanbag and watching some rehearsals we got an idea of the style, aesthetics and pulse of the play. After that we created movements and choreographed dances that would be most effective in conveying the spirited mood of the play,' they explain. This entailed studying the basic anatomy, movement pattern and nuances of a horse as well as conducting workshops with the cast in raw physical movement and dance. 'Thereafter, we let the actors play around with horse movements, letting them fuse their own style with it. It has been a lot of fun. There is a very challenging sequence of an entire horse race which the audience sees through the eyes and expressions of the actors who make it come alive,' add the duo. ('The Horse' will be staged at the Bal Gandharva Rang Mandir, Bandra, on August 9 and 10.)
