Mary Kom's superhero avatar on TV soon

The life journey of Olympian MC Mary Kom, showcased on the silver screen through the film ‘Mary Kom’, delivered a powerful punch. Now, the boxer is set to invade the small screen as a female superhero via an animation TV series called Mary Kom Jr.

The boxer has signed up a licensing deal with ScreenYug Creations Pvt Ltd, a creative studio based out of Pune, for India's first girl superhero animation series. ScreenYug and Aditya Horizons will produce the series together.

Mary Kom's story of carving a name for herself in global boxing ring circuit has been inspiring, and with the series, Mary Kom plans to motivate girls to follow their dreams. "I think it is time to take more responsibility for the girl child. I want girls to be confident and strong,” she said. The animation series will also bring in a flavour of self-defence, and the boxer feels it is necessary to spread awareness.

“Parents are usually not keen on fighting games for their girl child, but with all the crime going around, their eyes are now open and this will help,” she said. Mary Kom Jr is being produced by Ashish S Kulkarni, and his team including Vikram Veturi (director), Sudip Banerjee and Aditya Bakshi (concept and story directors), JV Varaprasad (editor and music director), Rajesh Bhosale (line production) and Anand Pandey (production architect).

Kulkarni emphasised that though the story will be based on Mary Kom with Manipur in focus, they plan to include other characters for universal appeal. "It is true that we are creating India's first girl superhero animated series, which will be based on India's own super sportstar Mary Kom.

While we have a Manipuri tinge by capturing the fiction life of a young Mary Kom while in school, we will have other characters with a more neutral tone in order to appeal to the global audience," Kulkarni said. This licensing agreement will entitle Mary Kom to get royalties from the global sales of animation series, any merchandise, story books, e-books, games, comics and online distribution in the future.