Making it large the 3D way: DQ Entertainment

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Q: You are producing and distributing a 3D animated series with ZDF Enterprises from Germany. Tell us more about this and what kind of implications it would have on your revenue stream?

A: Let me talk about 5&IT. 5&IT is a novel written by Edith Nesbit in 1905. We have taken this for producing into a television series in 3D. ZDF Enterprises is a fairly large four billion euro global company and this is a 9.2 million euro project. Direct cash implications with us will be 6 million euro, which will come to us in next two years time.

Q: Is this 6 million coming directly to DQ Entertainment because you have signed an agreement and it appears that even ZDF will be contributing quite significantly in terms of the investment. What is DQ’s investment and also the revenue, and when will it come into your balance sheet?

A: ZDF is investing substantial amount in this project and so are the French and Italian co-producers. We are not allowed to disclose their (co-producers’) names yet. We also have Turkey participating in the project now. So we have completely funded the project and 6 million euro, which is approximately Rs 38-39 crore, will come in DQ production’s revenues in two years time. This production will take two years and two months to produce. With milestones, this money keeps coming and balance amount of money will be invested in preproduction, writing of scripts and songs and music in France.

Q: What about your overall revenue stream? The last time when you spoke with us, you indicated that from this year your revenues will grow by almost about 30% due to a couple of toy licensing agreements. You think it could grow further and since then any developments there?

A: So far, the developments, whatever we have are very depressed in the European and US market. We are one of the rare companies which is still doing quite well and are on track on whatever internal estimates have made for 2011-12. We are hopeful that with the big feature film- Jungle Book - going on stream, it will bring in some production revenues. It is a USD 30 million feature film. The growth should be good from there on and should be at par with expectations of the board.