With Hollywood hitting up comic books for blockbusters, a new comics publisher is looking to India for ideas.
"The world is increasingly realizing that India is a source for creativity and great ideas, not just a back office to execute them more cheaply," said Gotham Chopra, part of the management team at Los Angeles-based Liquid Comics.
One of the first projects for the publisher will be bringing its Ramayan 3392 AD (pictured) — a colorful, 21st-century re-imagining of Indian literary epic the Ramayana — to movie theaters. Liquid has teamed up with Mandalay Pictures and 300 producer Mark Canton for the film, which has a planned release date of 2011.
Liquid sprang from the ashes of Virgin Comics, a shuttered enterprise from Richard Branson and the Chopra family that was meant to hammer the dense narratives of India and Asia into graphic novels for the American mainstream and beyond. Chopak and other members of the Liquid management team undertook the buyout of Virgin Comics to continue the quest at the new company.
Chopra talked with Wired.com about Liquid's birth, a new wave of Indian comics artists and the challenge of bringing an ancient Sanskrit epic to the silver screen.
Wired.com: Condensing the Ramayana into a comic book must have been hard, but condensing it into a film seems harder. What do you think about the challenge, and how do you think it will do with audiences unfamiliar with the venerable narrative's mythology?
Gotham Chopra: Can you say, "Trilogy?" Seriously, this is something we've talked about at length even in relation to the original comic series. Obviously, our goal is to create a narrative structure that doesn't require a familiarity with the original story. That's an important note, not only so that people who have never heard of Ramayan can enjoy it, but also so those who are familiar with it are not offended by the film.
To that extent, ours has never been envisioned as an authentic retelling, but rather a re-imagined version, inspired by some of the core themes of the original. Those themes, in our mind, are really universal, as this is a story about the type of leadership required in calamitous times. It's also about families, species and all of civilization uniting to tackle larger, more daunting, adversaries.
Wired.com: Mark Canton did well with 300. Was that part of your decision to work with him?
Chopra: Absolutely. Obviously Ramayan is a world unto itself with its own texture, culture and ethos, especially in the way that we have re-imagined it. Mark's history with 300, which redefined the way films of this ilk can be made, aligns perfectly with what we think Ramayan can be.
That said, we also intend to push the envelope, utilizing technology that produced 300, but likely moving away from the monochromatic color schemes that defined it and others in the genre. We want to embrace a dynamic color palette.
Wired.com: Mandalay is picking up graphic novels, as is everyone else. What do you think of the gold rush to turn revered comics into movies?
Chopra: As everyone in this business knows, there's a big difference between optioning and developing properties, and making a movie. To that extent, I am a big believer in survival of the fittest; I think the stories with the greatest depth will likely be the ones to ultimately succeed.
In that regard, I wish I could take all the credit for Ramayan, but it happens to be a story 6,000 years in the making, so we feel like we are on pretty solid ground. In particular with Mandalay, we also know we have partners that see beyond just the latest trend.
Peter Guber, the chairman of the company and Hollywood legend, has been a longtime personal mentor to me. His team, led by Cathy Schulman — who has a long list of achievements, including an Oscar — have been awesome to work with already. We think we're on our way to creating something that will really be an enduring franchise.
Wired.com: Talk about Liquid's consolidation in Los Angeles. What brought it on?
Chopra: It's hard to distill the resurrection of the company to any one thing. Where we are today is the culmination of many forces and factors, both micro-trends in our own company the last few years, and macro-trends that certainly are gripping not just the entertainment industry, but the world at large.
Specifically, with our former partners in the Virgin Group, we could not have ever had better people to help us build an incredibly strong foundation for a dynamic content company. That said, we were very respectful for their desire to really focus on their core activities, and enthusiastic about our ability to take this company to new heights.
Wired.com: How is it going so far?
Chopra: So far, so good. Ultimately, we believe that the West is closer to where we need to be as a content company. Closer to some of the larger distributors of content, be it bigger media companies and/or online companies. Of course, the real future for us may indeed be India and Asia, so stay tuned.
Wired.com: Speaking of, any thoughts on India and Asia's rise as 21st-century powerhouses?
Chopra: More than just booming markets which inevitably impact our company and others in our industry, the thing I am more excited by is the creative potential we are mining there in terms of world-class artists and writers. That's always been the real mission of our company.
Any time a studio chief at Disney, Fox, Universal Studios or Warner Bros. admires some of the artwork in our books, I am reminded of the real transformation that we are already seeing and will be seeing more of in the coming years. Get ready to hear and see more from the electric minds of the Jeevan Kangs, Mukesh Singh and Dean Hyrapiet. It's cool to know that the world is increasingly realizing that India is a source for creativity and great ideas, not just a back office to execute them more cheaply.
