- Marvel’s Stan Lee will create a new character for audiences in China and India.
- New hero will be based on monkey warrior legends from the two Asian cultures.
- Chinese film group Shinework Pictures will partner with Lee’s media company POW! Entertainment and Graphic India to begin pre-production on a live-action film in 2017.
Stan Lee. Photo by Wikipedia/Luigi Novi.
Marvel Comics impresario Stan Lee and his long-time collaborator Sharad Devarajan are teaming up to launch “Monkey Master” as a new superhero drawing on the myths of China and India.
Chinese film group Shinework Pictures will partner with Lee’s media company POW! Entertainment and Graphic India to begin pre-production on a live-action film in 2017. India’s Cinema Capital Advisory will co-produce the project.
Graphic co-founder and CEO Devarajan, who also created “Chakra The Invincible,” the first Indian superhero, with Lee, said the story will take place between ancient and modern-day China and India and will draw on monkey warrior myths known to both cultures to create the modern day superhero.
Monkey Master will interweave Chinese and Indian myths “to create a hero that will entertain fans across the world with his martial arts skills and unstoppable superpowers,” Lee said in a statement.
The film will primarily be targeted towards the Chinese market, but will also be developed to appeal to international markets. The partners intend to cast leading Chinese, Indian, and international stars.
“We are excited to leverage Stan Lee’s experience creating some of the world’s most popular superhero characters to create an epic Chinese superhero film that will not only appeal to China but also globally to international markets,” said Jonathan Shen, Shinework Pictures founder and CEO.
Shinework’s producing team will include Shen, Iris Wang, and Daljit DJ Parmar. Champion will be a producer of the film, with Lee and Devarajan attached as executive producers.
India and China inked an agreement in 2015 to kickstart a new filmmaking relationship between the two Asian giants which boast two of the world’s biggest film industries.
The Sino-Indian co-productions that have followed include Kung Fu Yoga starring Jackie Chan, Buddies In India (大闹天竺), starring star comic Wang Baoqiang of Lost in Thailand fame, and Xuanzang, which tells of the spread of Buddhism to China from India.
In March, Taiwan film company Hualien Media International announced they would work with Lee and Hollywood filmmaker Ridley Scott on two upcoming blockbusters.
