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A Valiant Effort

Two comics loving Indian-American entrepreneurs — Jason Kothari and Dinesh Shamdasani — acquire the struggling Valiant brand and are all set to resurrect some of the world’s favourite lesser known superheroes

The comic-book industry has traditionally been dominated by two big names: Marvel, whose major characters joined forces on-screen in summer 2012 for The Avengers, currently 
the third highest-grossing film in history; and DC Comics, whose roster includes Batman and Superman.

New York-based Valiant 
Entertainment, co-founded 
by Indian Americans Jason Kothari, 31, and Dinesh Shamdasani, 31 — after acquiring the rights to the Valiant Comics library from Acclaim Entertainment — are attempting to add a third name to the mix.

Kothari and Shamdasani talk about their venture.

On taking over Valiant:

Kothari: Dinesh and I are childhood friends and we were both big fans of comics, particularly Valiant. A few years ago, the parent company of Valiant, former NASDAQ-listed video game company Acclaim Entertainment, shuttered due to the lack of success of its core video game business, so we took the opportunity to acquire all the rights to the Valiant library of characters from them.

In the 1990s, Valiant was one of the fastest growing companies in the entertainment industry, and it was predicted to become the next Marvel. After video game company Acclaim Entertainment acquired Valiant in 1994 and foc-used on video games based on the characters, changing the company’s business and creative strategy, Valiant never reached its potential. We 
acquired it with the intention of putting it back on track.

On your background:

Kothari: We both grew up as expats in Hong Kong, and came the US for further education. Dinesh [who was born in Dubai and moved to Hong Kong when he was four] went to the USC School of Cinema-Television, and I attended The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

On the few big players in the comic-book industry:

Kothari: Valiant was a major player in the worldwide comic book industry in the 1990s, selling 80 million comic books and becoming one of the three great libraries of comic book characters after Marvel and DC Comics. Valiant has a 
library of 1,500 characters. These are not new ones: these are characters that already have a large passionate fan base, that we are reactivating.

On being a top player in the movie business:

Kothari: We have the key ingredients to be a major force in the film industry, as we own and control a large, high-quality content library in the most successful film genre, have best-in class partners and access to large-scale capital.

Peter Cuneo, the former CEO and Vice Chairman of Marvel, is Valiant’s Chairman. During his tenure, Marvel created the most successful track record in Hollywood history, including the creation of their own movie studio, Marvel Studios. In addition, some of our other key investors were early investors in Legendary Pictures —which was responsible for The Dark Knight trilogy — also one of the most successful film companies in history.

We have five major motion pictures currently in the pipeline, and we have partnered with top producers in the 
industry for each project. For 
example, Neal Moritz, the producer of the Fast and the Furious franchise, Doug Davison, the producer of Oscar winner The Departed, Sean Daniel, the producer of The Mummy franchise, and Brett Ratner, the director of X-Men III.

On challenges faced, especially the lack of a superhero with big name recognition:

Kothari: We don’t have a super-hero that has the mainstream appeal of a character like Spider-Man, but we have a number of characters that are comparable to Iron Man, Captain America and Thor, prior to their movies — not known to the general public but very well-known within the comic book community.

Shamdasani: Within the industry, the Valiant characters are very, very popular. We were at the San Diego Comic-Con Int-ernational, which is the biggest convention in the field. A couple of hundred thousand people per day attended it, over five days. At the convention, it was amazing to see the turnout, the passion for some of our characters. Within the industry, our characters are very, very popular. That’s the base we are building from.Kothari: At their peak, Valiant’s key characters outsold the likes of Iron Man, Captain America and Thor. In addition, Valiant’s top ten characters each have greater total sales than two-thirds of comic book characters that have been made into movies, which gives you an idea about Valiant’s potential for multiple film franchises.

On replicating the Marvel experience:

Kothari: I will tell you that we are certainly putting the pieces together to maximise the probability of achieving Marvel 2.0. Marvel was one of the most successful turnarounds in entertainment history, coming out of bankruptcy in 1999 and being sold in 2009 to Disney for $4.5 billion. Many of the key people responsible for that turnaround are working with us, helping us and guiding us.

Similar to the creation of Marvel Studios, which allowed them to self-finance their movies, starting with Iron Man, which obviously was a huge success, we will be raising ind-ependent film financing of a few hundred million dollars to self-finance our movies as well. Comic book-based movies have the most successful track record in Hollywood history, so it’s not surprising we have been approached by a number of investors eager to finance our movies. We have finally decided to start the process of creating an investment vehicle to allow them to finance or co-finance our films.

We are lucky to have Peter Cuneo, former CEO of Marvel. We have several former Marvel executives helping build our company. That’s where the comparisons are coming. Of course, the characters have at one point challenged Marvel’s. Valiant characters have one of the most passionate fan bases in comic book history, and this passion is more valuable today than ever before with the prevalence of social media.

On focusing on the publishing side:

Kothari: We re-launched our publishing business in May 2012, and it has been extre-mely successful.

We re-launched a number of our major characters, and they are consistently best-sellers and critically acclaimed. Our comics are also available 
digitally worldwide on comiXology, the leading digital comics platform.

On being Indian American and adding characters based on Indian mythology to the mix:

Shamdasani: In Harbinger#2, there is a very, very exciting character called Darpan. It also has a sequence based in Calcutta. Definitely, we are going to play with a lot of Indian mythology and characters. One of the reasons Valiant was so successful is because it is expanding to different ethnicities. Valiant has a very prominent biracial character, and a very prominent Asian character. Now, we are adding Indian to the mix as well.

On Valiant’s first likely movie — Bloodshot:

Shamdasani:The script has been 
rewritten. In Neal Moritz, we have one of the best producers in the business. Sony Pictures is our partner. We are expecting Bloodshot to go into production this year and rel-ease in 2014.

— Global India Newswire