Big B ties up with Toonz for 3-D film

Years after it created the animated version of legendary court poet Tenali Raman to the applause of audiences around.

The world, Toonz Animation is giving the same treatment to Bollywood’s living legend Amitabh Bachchan.

Toonz has tied up with Amitabh Bachchan Corporation for a 90-minute animation film production, with an estimated production cost of Rs 20 crore.

The 3-D film, which features twin characters and has been given the working title, Twinergy, is predominantly aimed at Indian audiences, but will also be released for worldwide theatre audiences.

“The pre-production of the movie is over and we hope to complete production in time for the film to hit theatres by Diwali 2010”, Toonz Animation CEO P Jayakumar said here. “It is not easy for an animated version to compete with top-rung commercial movies at the theatres, and therefore we need to time the release well”, he said.

Mr Bachchan will give voice to the character and also have a share in the movie rights, but the funding risk is being taken by Toonz. Mr Bachchan is expected to start sound recording for the movie next month. Mr Jayakumar said Big B had been presented with seven different concepts for the movie, and that he had liked as many as four of them, from which one was chosen. The movie features adopted twin brothers in a palace, and has a lot of palace intrigue thrown in, complete with a greedy, power-hungry uncle.

While animated films may be distinctly different from regular productions that have human actors, Twinergy will be directed by Priyadarshan, of Bollywood and Mollywood fame. Toonz Animation, which completed a decade of operations this year, has a clientele including Disney, BBC, Marvel, Paramount, Universal, Cartoon Network and Hallmark, and has changed its profile from being a production house to being a one-stop solutions provider for entertainment major across the world.

Toonz Animation’s animated television series productions include ‘The Adventures of Tenali Raman’ and ‘Hanuman Returns’. The company is presently engaged in the production of two other 3-D movies in addition to the venture with Amitabh Bachchan Corporation, namely ‘Gatturo’, based on a Latin American character, and a Santa Claus movie to be released by Christmas 2010.