Munnabhai may be a merchandise hit too

'Gandhigiri' may be the biggest take away for fans of the Hindi film Lage Raho Munna Bhai but the filmmakers do not have any plans to launch merchandise on 'Brand Gandhi'.

However, the production house Vinod Chopra Films has been flooded with offers for merchandise even as Munnabhai 3 (the third part of the film) is already being planned.

Thomas P George, head-marketing, Vinod Chopra Films, said they had been approached by several firms to produce Munnabhai merchandise. The company has received offers from animation (or production) houses in the US and Europe to spin off the characters into a cartoon or animated series and they are hoping to get started with this in the near future.

Closer home, the company is in talks with various publishers to launch a comic book and is waiting to find the right partner to tie up with. "A lot of publishing houses are interested and these characters can be used to effectively teach otherwise complex concepts with simplicity," George said.

The offers came very close to the release of the film, he added. If the company had signed the deal, the products would have hit the shelves only by mid-October, well over a month after the release of the film.

"It wouldn't have made sense as the initial hype around the release would have died down," explained George.

Now the company is looking forward to launch the products closer to Munnabhai and Circuit's third outing, fans of the duo still have a lot to look forward to. "Now that the characters have been well developed, they can be extended to other media as well," said George.

The company wanted a partner who would match their sensibilities and was not focussing only on the commercial angle, he said.

Merchandising is fast turning out to be another lucrative income stream for filmmakers.

Among recent Hindi films, Krrish had launched an entire range of merchandise, from dolls to games in collaboration with Pantaloon to coincide with the release of the film while Yash Raj Films had launched merchandise to coincide with its film Fanaa.

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