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The current landscape of the Indian entertainment business is dominated by streaming platforms, but back in the 1980s, the same status was enjoyed by the television industry as it was still in its nascent stage. Since this was before the era of privatisation, Indian audience could only watch the state-sponsored Doordarshan channel and during this time, Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayana and BR Chopra’s Mahabharat became two of the most popular shows. In a recent interview, Lalit Modi claimed that Ramanand Sagar contacted him to finance Ramayana, as Modi had a partnership with Disney at the time, but Disney’s top bosses rejected the offer because they were unimpressed with Sagar’s “appearance”.
In a chat shared on The Bharat Inc’s YouTube channel, Modi said he had partnered with Disney to bring its content to Indian television and had built the country’s largest ecosystem for marketing, distributing and producing content. “Ramanand Sagar and BR Chopra both came to me and wanted me to finance it and I was ready to finance it. I had an integrated system of marketing, production, worldwide syndication through Disney. But I had a partner in the Walt Disney Company. I told them that we should get into the production business and make a co-production with Ramanand Sagar. They said we have to sell our programming. It will be a conflict of interest. I kept pushing though,” he said.
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Ramanand Sagar walked into a meeting with Disney in shorts
Lalit Modi said that he tried to convince the top bosses at Disney that Ramanand Sagar’s demand of Rs 1 crore must be met, as Disney can then secure the rights of the show. The show went on to become one of the most successful shows in India. After much insistence, Disney bosses agreed and flew down to India for a meeting. “Ramanand Sagar walked into that meeting in shorts,” he remembered. When asked if there was a problem with that, he said that Disney was quite strict about appearances in those days.
“He had some issues with his English as well. He listened to what Disney had to say but he couldn’t understand it fully and vice versa, so he couldn’t make an impression on the Disney guys. They were used to sophisticated pitches back then. They wanted to see a presentation. I could see that the president of Disney was ready to run out of the room. He couldn’t understand what this could do and rightfully so, because they didn’t know. Mythology had never been shown on Indian TV. He didn’t know if this could work. I couldn’t do much because I had a partner,” Modi said.
Arun Govil and Deepika Chikhalia in Ramayana.
Lalit Modi claimed that he had created an ecosystem for Disney shows in India, Disney Hour, via Doordarshan, which is what made Ramanand Sagar and BR Chopra approach him. Ramayana aired in 1987, followed by Mahabharat in 1988, but Disney Hour started airing on Doordarshan in the early 1990s.
Lalit Modi brought Duck Tales to India in 1993, made Rs 21 crore
In another part of the chat, Lalit Modi shared that the “first thing” he did “in life” was Duck Tales as he brought it on to Doordarshan in 1993. Recalling how he made that deal, Modi said that it took him 127 trips from Los Angeles to India to ink that deal as he started a partnership with Disney for their merchandising business. To sell the merchandise, he started airing their animated shows as well.
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“The tool I used was very simple: children. Kids went to school but had nothing to look forward to. There were no computers, no telephones, no tablets. There was one dumb box that sat there and the majority of it was black-and-white television. There was no entertainment available. I brought something to every child in the house,” he said.
Modi said that to make the merchandise work, he needed the support of the television shows. “Disney Hour was like free advertising for this. And the ads playing on Disney Hour would make us money. Doordarshan used to take fixed fees for the slot. Like if they ask for Rs 5 lakh, you pay them that much. But you can earn from the ads,” he said and added that Doordarshan did not need much convincing, as the government needed television to get popular. “My year one profit was Rs 21 crore,” he claimed.
Still from Duck Tales.
Aladdin’s failure for Lalit Modi
During his partnership with Disney, the company had a huge international success with The Lion King in 1994, but at that time, Lalit Modi chose to release Aladdin in India, which had released internationally back in 1992. In India, this was one of the few international releases at the time which had released in local screens with Hindi, Tamil and Telugu dubs in 1994. The film bombed at the box office as the audience had been eagerly waiting to watch The Lion King, and not Aladdin.
Michael Eisner, who was the chairman of Disney at the time, told Modi that the failure had brought him back down. “He said, ‘You were flying too high. You needed to come down to earth,’” he recalled.
