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Move over Bollywood, India’s animated heroes are taking center stage.
Warner Bros. Discovery is significantly ramping up its kids entertainment offering in India, with the media giant set to deliver 200 half-hours of fresh content across its three children’s channels in Q2 alone.
The company’s kids entertainment cluster, comprising Pogo, Cartoon Network and Discovery Kids, will introduce a slate of new content that includes 71 half-hours of new premieres on Pogo, focusing heavily on homegrown Indian IPs like “Chhota Bheem,” “Little Singham” and “Jay Jagannath.” The remit of Arjun Nohwar, general manager for India and South Asia, extends across the region with cross-border cultural similarities including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal and Bhutan.
“We are looking for stories that resonate across South Asia,” Nohwar tells Variety. “One thing that we’ve started seeing is that some of these franchises and shows that we make will resonate with the Indian diaspora across the world. But what we did not anticipate is some of these shows had resonance and acceptability in non-diaspora audiences across the world as well.”
The crossover films featuring “Chhota Bheem” and “Little Singham,” branded as “India’s Superheroes,” broke viewing records when released in 2024, and Warner Bros. Discovery plans to build on this success in 2025. “Jay Jagannath,” which launched in May 2024 and quickly became a hit on both linear networks and digital platforms, will see its second and third seasons premiere this year.
“One thing that we’ve done differently over the last few years has been to try and meld and create crossovers between these characters and the universes,” Nohwar explains. “That has really done well in terms of just the creative exploration of what can change when you have these two superheroes and their universes of villains and families and villages and cities.”
He adds that this approach has been “extremely fun for us as a creative production house to deliver to our fans,” with audiences embracing these crossover narratives in both feature-length formats and episodic series.
Cartoon Network’s Q2 international highlights will include the premiere of “My Hero Academia” Season 7, new episodes of “Teen Titans Go!” and a fresh season of comedy show “Grizzy and the Lemmings.”
A key aspect of Warner Bros. Discovery’s strategy involves extensive regionalization, with content now available in seven language feeds including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi and English.
Warner Bros. Discovery’s localization strategy extends beyond language dubbing. “Dubbing is not just about the language. Dubbing is also about introducing the slang and the personality to a character, which may change,” Nohwar says. “We may give it a little bit more of a flamboyant personality… We keep testing the boundaries with this hyper-localization.”
The company’s robust kids entertainment division operates as part of its broader South Asian strategy, which also includes factual content through Discovery+ and Discovery Channel, sports programming via Eurosport, and theatrical releases.
Regarding Discovery+, Nohwar explains how the platform has established a distinct identity in a crowded streaming market: “What’s helped us is our unique identity and positioning as not a general entertainment OTT [streaming] platform, but a very sharp identity of being a leader in the factual lifestyle, adventure, history, mystery categories. We therefore occupy a different mind space in the consumer’s mind, and there it’s not cluttered with several other competitors.”
The platform’s quest for stories that resonate across South Asia extends to the unscripted front as well, where WBD continues to build its factual and lifestyle portfolio with culturally relevant local productions. The company’s slate includes high-impact titles like “Reality Ranis of the Jungle,” an all-female survival reality show; “Mystery Hunter,” hosted by Rannvijay Singha; and “Star vs. Food Survival Season 2,” featuring celebrities such as Kartik Aaryan and Shikhar Dhawan. Documentary offerings like “The Legends of Shiva” and “Cult of Fear: Asaram Bapu” have found significant traction with South Asian audiences seeking culturally resonant storytelling.
“We started experimenting with creating impactful shows that had local stories that we could uncover and unfold, but they had to be related to the ethos and the identity of Discovery,” Nohwar says. “We’ve had many successful franchises… and we’ve improved our capabilities over the years.”
Warner Bros. Discovery’s theatrical slate in India this year includes major titles like “A Minecraft Movie,” which released April 4; “Superman,” marking the launch of James Gunn’s new DC Universe; and the next installment in the “Jurassic Park” franchise “Jurassic World: Rebirth.” WBD will also release “Ne Zha 2,” the highest-grossing animated film of all time, in the country.
On extending Warner Bros. Discovery’s popular franchises beyond theaters into experiential offerings like theme parks in India, Nohwar says the company is evaluating options but proceeding cautiously. “Currently we already have, for example, ‘Chhota Bheem’ with a presence in [theme park] Imagicaa, which is outside of Mumbai. In terms of the WB theme park question, that is something that we continue to evaluate as well,” he says.
“It requires a longer cycle time and deeper commitment to investment capital to put behind it. So we want to be very sure that we are ready in this market to put that kind of patient capital at play,” Nohwar adds. “India would be somewhere in that sequencing or in that study right now, but it is not clear at the moment whether we are going to be making those investments in the country.”
As Warner Bros. Discovery celebrates the 30th anniversary of Discovery and Cartoon Network in India, Nohwar reflects on their cultural impact, saying that they’ve “become more than just channels in India” and are “part of the cultural fabric.”
He continues, “We’ve not only brought global content to local audiences but also created experiences that have shaped generations.”
When asked about a potential standalone Max channel launch in India, Nohwar echoes what Warner Bros. Discovery CEO and president of global streaming and games JB Perrette told Variety recently, saying that the company is “evaluating different options” including licensing deals, various partnership constructs and the possibility of a direct-to-consumer Max launch.
“We want to make sure that the economics behind that choice are correct and sustainable,” he says.
