Walt Disney Co. Is filming a series based on ancient Hindu mythology Mahabharata. Head of content at Disney+hotstar, Gaurav Banerjee made the announcement at the media giant’s three-day D23 extravaganza event at the Anaheim Convention Center in California. He said it will be a retelling of the around 2000-year-old Sanskrit poem about two groups of cousins vying for their clan’s throne and kingdom with the aid and interference of the Gods, will be released in 2024.
Disney hopes the longest poem ever written - with 200,000 verses in its unabridged version - will rope in audience in India. “Mythology has always been one of the most popular genres on Indian television,” said Mihir Shah, the Mumbai-based vice president at consultancy Media Partners Asia. “The announcement of Mahabharata on Disney+ Hotstar is a move to extend this success” into the world of online streaming, he said.
Of the three main international streaming services in India, Disney is at the top, with just under 60 million subscribers. Live streaming of cricket, India’s national obsession has been a big driver of that growth, though Disney lost the rights to digitally broadcast tournaments earlier this year to a consortium of Hollywood studio Paramount Global and Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd.
