Meet Indian producer, who owns Oscar-winning studio, making most expensive Indian film, Hollywood big-budget venture

Apart from Ranbir Kapoor, the other name that connects the 2022 fantasy action adventure film Brahmastra Part One: Shiva and the upcoming big-budget mythological drama Ramayana is Namit Malhotra. Namit Malhotra is the founder of the visual and special effects company Prime Focus Limited, through which he bankrolled Brahmastra and is now making one of the most awaited films in Indian cinema - Ramayana.

Son of film producer Naresh Malhotra and grandson of cinematographer MN Malhotra (who worked on one of India's first colour films Jhansi Ki Rani in 1953), Namit inherits a rich cinematic legacy from his family. Born on April 2, 1976, in Mumbai, Malhotra joined a computer graphics school at the age of 19. He soon set up Video Workshop, an editing studio in his father's garage recruiting three teachers from the school he had joined. Two years later in 1997, he merged Video Workshop with his father's Video Works, a film production equipment rental business, and created Prime Focus.

Prime Focus did visual and sound effects for multiple television and films. It became one of the first companies to set up a scanning and recording system in 2001, and DI system in 2003 in India. It was the first to operate a motion controlled rig in the Indian entertainment industry in 2004. Under Malhotra's leadership, the company expanded globally and acquired visual effects studio in London, New York, Los Angeles and Vancouver, launching Prime Focus World. Through its proprietary View-D technology, the company worked on a number of Hollywood blockbusters including Star Wars and Harry Potter films.

In 2014, Malhotra merged Prime Focus World with Double Negative, a London-based visual effects studio and rebranded it as DNEG. The company, which is being headed by Namit as its CEO, has won seven Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects for it work on Inception, Interstellar, Ex Machina, Blade Runner 2049, First Man, Tenet and Dune. DNEG is now the subsidiary of Prime Focus Limited.

Namit Malhotra is now making his biggest project - Ramayana. It stars Ranbir Kapoor as Lord Rama, Sai Pallavi as Sita, Yash as Ravana, Sunny Deol as Lord Hanuman, and multiple other prominent actors playing pivotal characters from the mythological epic. Directed by Dangal-fame Nitesh Tiwari, Ramayana is being co-produced by Namit's Prime Focus Studios and Yash's Monster Mind Creations. The project is being planned as a trilogy with the makers wanting to release the first part on Diwali 2025. Ramayana is touted as the most expensive Indian film with the reported budget of over Rs 600 crore.

He is also co-producing upcoming animated Hollywood film The Garfield Movie, with Chris Pratt voicing the titular character. Samuel L. Jackson, Ving Rhames, Hannah Waddingham, Nicholas Hoult, Cecily Strong, Brett Goldstein, Bowen Yang, and Snoop Dogg have also provided their voices for the big-budget Hollywood venture, which is slated to release on May 24 this year. The Garfield Movie has been animated by Namit's company DNEG itself.

READ | AI imagines Ranbir Kapoor as Lord Rama, Sai Pallavi as Sita, Yash as Ravana in Ramayana

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