Desi superhero Shaktimaan to get a movie trilogy backed by Sony Pictures, a 'major superstar' to headline the films

Sony Pictures International Productions has acquired the film adaptation rights of India’s most coveted superhero IP - ‘ Shaktimaan ’ to reimagine it as a superhero trilogy for the big screen, to be headlined by one of India’s major superstars.

Sony has now partnered with Brewing Thoughts Private Limited (co-founded by ex-film journalist, Prashant Singh, and Madhurya Vinay), in association with actor-producer Mukesh Khanna’s Bheeshm International, to kick-start the work on recreating the magic of ‘Shaktimaan’, but this time for the cinemas. The superhero franchise is going to be helmed by one of the country’s top filmmakers.

This also marks the studio’s first entry in the Indian superhero space, having already dominated it globally, through the parent company, Sony Pictures Entertainment which owns the rights to Spider-Man . The studio also plans to seek expertise from its headquarters in Culver City, Los Angeles to provide one of the unique cinematic experiences ever seen in Indian cinema using the latest technology in movie-making and post-production.

‘Shaktimaan’, to date, remains India’s most iconic superhero brand. The superhero was essayed by Mukesh Khanna on the small screen and ran on Doordarshan between 1997 to 2005. Holding a lot of nostalgic value for the 90’s kids, the idea of the TV show transforming into a mega movie can be a rather exciting one.

While superheroes from the West like Spiderman, The Avengers, Batman, Superman and Wonder woman have found immense popularity with the Indian audiences, there have been very few successful ventures with Indian superheroes. There has been Minnal Murali which saw success last year while Hrithik Roshan ’s Krrish has also been pretty popular as a superhero movie franchise.

Shaktimaan, however, has had a long lasting impression and hopefully the movie franchise on it will garner a whole new audience base for it.

The cast and director of the movie trilogy Shaktimaan is yet to be announced.