How Kantara, Baramulla gave visual effects firm Identical Brains Studios a new lease of life

It is the success of films like Kantara: A Legend, the second installment in the Kantara franchise and Mahavatar Narsimha that have brought back visual effects and animation work in demand.

Identical Brains Studios was one of the visual effects firms that worked on Kantara: A Legend that released this year and Rai still cannot hold his excitement looking at the box office success of the movie.

The movie, which despite its streaming premier on Amazon Prime Video is continuing with strong box office collections, has taken its India total to over Rs 600 crore and worldwide business stands at around Rs 850 crore.

Rai and his more than 100 people team delivered over 300 VFX shots in two months for Kantara: A Legend, a project which has caught everyone's attention.

"The movie is VFX and computer graphics heavy. We worked day and night. I had hired a few former Technicolor India (the company shut down this year) talent and under their guidance Kantara was delivered. The film has given us a lot of recognition. After Kantara, we signed two projects," he said.

Along with Kantara, Rai pointed to the success of Mahavatar Narsimha, an animation film which has collected over Rs 300 crore, a feat which no other animation movie has achieved in India so far.

"The animation industry was at its low but business has picked up after Mahavatar Narsimha, a movie made on a small budget (around Rs 30 crore) with such a huge box office recovery. This is why so many animation, VFX projects are lining up because producers have a sense that such projects cost less and Indians have an appetite for such content," he added.

Identical Brains Studio had worked on the climax sequence of the animation movie. The company is also picking up more animation related work.

Budgets for VFX have also doubled in movies, Rai said. For instance, the VFX budget accounted for 20-25% of Kantara: A Legend's total budget which is estimated at Rs 125 crore.

"For big films the VFX budget is over 20% now versus around 10% in the years just after Covid."

What led to a decline in the VFX and animation industry?

"Just when we had listed we saw a slowdown in the market due to the international crisis including the writers' and actors' strike. Back home, the merger deals between big companies in the streaming space had halted greenlighting of shows."

The strike by Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild which had halted most film and television production had started in 2023 and ended later that year.

It was the streaming sector that had helped in the revival of the VFX and animation sector in India. However, Rai said that the merger deals slowed down new work. "Only Netflix was producing shows but it had also cut down new projects."

The animation, VFX and post-production segment contracted by 9%, reaching Rs 10300 crore in 2024 from Rs 11400 crore a year ago, according to FICCI-Ernst & Young 2025 report.

The global decline in commissioning TV and Over The Top (OTT) animation shows, coupled with cost-cutting measures and shifting priorities, disrupted the animation outsourcing pipeline to India in 2024, the report highlighted.

Is recovery in sight?

Rai said absolutely. "Amazon, JioHotstar, Netflix have sanctioned projects and that has improved business. Our current pipeline has 50-60% OTT projects and 40% is films. In films too, there is an improvement."

Even Hollywood projects are coming back. "In FY26, international work was completely shut. We used to do 20-30% international work which was completely gone. We used to mail, make calls to global studios but there was no response. Now, we are picking up individual small films. That work has at least started."

Even the cost of VFX and animation is seeing some recovery which dropped due to the slowdown in the industry.

"The rate was also down by 30-40% because of competition and less work. It has seen some marginal improvement."

But when cost came down, Artificial Intelligence (AI) helped offset some impact.

"If a project needs 15 artists, with the help of AI tools I can do the same work with 8 artists. So, 30-40% manpower cost cuts down. When the market was down which led to rate cuts, AI helped improve profitability."

With over 10 projects in the pipeline, 8 from the domestic market majorly South Indian movies and Hindi films and 1-2 international projects, Rai said that FY26 will be the year of recovery and FY27 onwards they will count their profits.

The VFX and animation business has picked up 40% for both us and the industry versus last financial year. We expect a 30% improvement in our business versus FY26," Rai said.