DQE plans Rs 56cr 3D animation TV series on canine star 'Lassie'

Hyderabad-based animation, gaming and entertainment company DQ Entertainment International, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the AIM-listed DQ Entertainment Plc, is working on a high-definition 3D animation television series on ‘Lassie’ – the world’s popular fictional collie-breed dog character having her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame– at an estimated budget of 8 million euro (about Rs 56 crore).

“We have bagged the rights from US-based Classic Media Inc, the owners of the Lassie brand, to co-produce, co-distribute, home video, merchandise and license the 26 half-hour-episode TV series in the rest of the world (excluding North America),” Tapaas Chakravarti, chairman and chief executive officer of the DQE Group, told Business Standard.

While DQE, which has roped in Germany’s public broadcaster ZDF and M6 of France as co-producers, will take the ‘Lassie’ TV series into full-scale production from October 2009, the company will deliver it from the third quarter of 2010 for worldwide telecasting followed by the release of home videos along with Classic Media, he added.

Lassie first featured in Eric Knight’s 1940 novel ‘Lassie Come-Home’. In 1943, MGM Studios debuted the canine heroine in her first silver-screen appearance alongside Hollywood’s legendary actress Elizabeth Taylor, followed by 10 more feature films in the 40’s and 50’s. The first eight of these films grossed over $285 million. Alongside Peter O'Toole (Lawrence of Arabia fame), Lassie lit up the big screen in a new feature film in 2005.

In 1954, the canine star made her live-action small-screen debut in an Emmy-award winning TV series that continued to air for 19 seasons, making it one of the longest-running series in television history. In total, Lassie has appeared in 691 TV episodes airing continuously in more than 100 countries. Today, Lassie is North America’s second largest dog food and treats brand. The United States postal service will unveil a classic ‘Lassie’ postage stamp in August 2009.

“While the earlier live-action movies and TV series on Lassie were in a linear mode of story telling with only one world (human world), our project will be in a multi-lateral story-telling mode with both the human world and the animal kingdom, wherein Lassie and her friends, for the first time in the character’s history, will talk to each other,” Tapaas said.

The original Lassie movies were created in traditional Europe with the base city being Yorkshire. However, DQE’s series will be developed with a contemporary-yet-neutral Europe in the backdrop, he said adding that about 200 of DQE’s animation experts in Hyderabad, and 17 from its Paris office, will work non-stop for nearly 15 months to deliver the series.

“Including broadcasting, home entertainment, licensing, merchandising, web and games, DQE and Classic Media roughly estimate the Lassie TV series to fetch a little over $30 million (approximately Rs 147 crore) in the next five years,” Tapaas said.