Chennai

Fox Star Studios India, a recently set up joint venture between Twentieth Century Fox and Star Asia, has entered into a two-year deal with Ghajini film director A R Murugadoss to produce Tamil films.

The two will strive to produce at least two films in the Rs 3 crore to Rs 6 crore budget every year and will review their relationship at the end of an agreed period. “Though a formal announcement was made about the joint foray with Murugadoss in May this year by Fox Star Studios, the nitty gritty of the deals have now been worked out,” a confidante of Murugadoss said.

According to him, Fox Star fully banks on the ‘Content is King’ theory. With Murugadoss having given a string of hits with leading stars like Surya, Ajit, Chiranjeevi and Aamir Khan, it has left the choice of content for the joint production entirely to the director. “The idea is to promote new talent and work with people who will look at new genres and take Indian cinema to the next level,” he said. With the objective behind the joint production being “content differentiator”, Murugadoss is said to have so far heard about 50 – 60 scripts.

While Fox Star will entirely fund the films, Murugadoss will get to take home a part of the revenues as his share, besides a percentage of the film’s budget as his fee. “We are looking at content that will be something different but at the same time be a winner. We hope to launch our first project before the end of this year,” Murugadoss told Financial Chronicle.

Fox Star has already entered into a two-film deal with director Vipul Shah. While the deal for Hindi films is non-exclusive, the one it has entered with Murugadoss is an exclusive Tamil film deal.

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