EXCLUSIVE: SonyLiv is getting deeper into the animation game.

The India-based streamer has quietly greenlit The Legend of Karna, which comes from Sharad Devarajan and Jeevan J. Kang and their production house, Graphic India. The series, inspired by the Hindu epic Mahabharata, will debut on July 31.

The Legend of Karna will follow Karna, a warrior from the Mahabharata who is born to Kunti and the Sun God Surya but raised in a charioteer’s household. He possesses the gift of bow mastery that rivals the greatest warriors of his age, compelling him to enter a grand tournament usually reserved only for kings and princes, altering the course of an empire forever.

Per the synopsis: “Crowned king by the ambitious prince Duryodhana but rejected by a court that judges him by his perceived birth, Karna rises from the dust of a village workshop to the royal halls of Hastinapura. His journey is one of exceptional talent, unwavering loyalty and an enduring struggle against a world governed by lineage. As politics, prophecy and hidden truths converge, Karna must confront the conflict between the destiny imposed upon him and the legacy he seeks to create.”

“We couldn’t imagine a better home for this journey than with our partners at Sony LIV and the incredible honor they are giving us,” said Devarajan, the co-creator and showrunner. “Karna has always been the tragic heart of the Mahabharata. What the world refused him by birth, his own hands took with skill, and that question feels more urgent today than ever. Does greatness come from where you are born, or from what you do?

“With The Legend of Karna, we wanted to tell his story the way it deserves to be told, as an epic saga of unbreakable loyalty, unbearable secrets, and a talent that shook the world, seen through the eyes of a hero who has always stood at the center of the epic but never at the center of its telling.”

Devarajan is known for collaborating with the late Stan Lee, collaborating to create Indian superhero series Chakra – The Invincible for Cartoon Network India in 2013. The Marvel creator’s influence on Devarajan was such that in the past he has been called “the Indian Stan Lee.” His credits include producing Netflix live-action film The Archies and The Legend of Hanuman, which has become one of the top-rated series on Disney+ Hotstar. Devarajan also created the Spider-Man India character for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and teamed with SS Rajamouli on the Baahubali movie franchise, overseeing gaming, publishing and digital media and creating Prime Video series Baahubali: The Lost Legends.

More recently, we revealed he is working with The Adjustment Bureau writer-director George Nolfi on a Hindi-language version of the 2011 film, and with Gladiator writer David Franzoni to turn his graphic novel about Alexander the Great into a scripted series alongside Starlings Television.

As for the Sony Pictures Networks India-owned Sony LIV, which is known for originals such as Rocket Boys, Scam and Freedom at Midnight, the series joins other animated originals such as Jiyo Gopuda and Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah.

Dixon Q. Dern, the longtime entertainment attorney who worked at CBS, Desilu and United Artists TV; who represented clients such as Desi Arnaz and the Television Academy; who often served as an arbitrator for labor disputes; who helped incorporate CAA and who was a pioneer in syndicated sales and pre-financing for TV, died on July 19. That, according to an obituary posted by Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills. He was 97.

Dern began his career as an in-house counsel for United Artists Television, Desilu and CBS before founding his own firm where he represented Desi Arnaz, the Television Academy, Village Roadshow, the Bob Hope Estate and many others.

Dern was often at the nexus of power in Hollywood.

One day in the mid-seventies, Michael Ovitz showed up, closed Dern’s office door and told him he and his associates would be back for a meeting the next day. The subject of the proposed meeting was not disclosed.

“The next day five guys showed up,” said Dern. “It was the five founders of CAA. They were basically the top five guys in William Morris’ television division and they told me they were leaving William Morris and wanted to set up a new agency. So I formed a corporation. They rented a little office with fold-up desks fold-up tables. We did their legal work for them for about six months.”

Dern often served as an arbitrator under various industry collective bargaining agreements, specifically the DGA and WGA.

Dern represented the Television Academy for decades. He played a key role in settling a long-simmering feud between its Los Angeles and New York contingents.

From the Academy’s official history:

By 1976, the situation had exacerbated to the point where, at the semiannual official national board meeting at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, each chapter designated five-man negotiation teams to meet separately from the rest of the attendees for a two-day summit convened to broker a detente.

The Los Angeles contingent consisted of Michael Baugh, Dixon Dern, Hank Rieger, the late Bob Sweeney and then Los Angeles chapter president Larry Stewart, who was chairman of the negotiating committee.

Reaching a settlement took far longer than two days.

Again, from the Academy’s official history:

After much legal wrangling, the two groups agreed to sever in 1977. According to the terms of the dissolution, both would retain their national status, with the group in Los Angeles retaining its original name, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, and the New York body retaining the name of National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

Each group would also control specific award shows: the Los Angeles-based Television Academy kept the Primetime Emmys, and jurisdiction over the Los Angeles chapter; the New York entity retained the Daytime, News, Documentary and Sports Emmys, as well as jurisdiction over the 19 chapters throughout the U.S. that produced their own local Emmy events.

Dern also learned a lot about the business while in the legal department at CBS.

“When I got there it was pre Fin-Syn, the financial interest syndication rule which later barred the networks from owning distribution rights,” he said in a 2021 interview with the Beverly Hills Bar Association, of which he was a former president. “But at the time…CBS could own its own shows. In fact, in most cases, it did and we did all the production work on them.”

Among those shows were classics like Gunsmoke, Have Gun Will Travel and Perry Mason.

Dern later moved to Desilu when Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball were still involved there.

“One thing we did there that was, I think, instrumental to the industry: We decided to set up a syndicated sales organization. We set up Desilu Sales which became the forerunner of Paramount Television today.”

He left Desilu after Paramount acquired the company.

When Dern set up his own practice, Desi became one of his first clients and stayed with him until the day the actor/producer died. Even after Desi’s death, Dern maintained a working relationship with the family. In fact, Dern represented Lucy and Desi Arnaz Jr. in negotiating rights for Amazon’s Being the Ricardos.

Through the years, Dern also became involved in back-end television financing and pre-sales to foreign distributors.

“I had a number of clients who were producing shows and they would get the funds from the network but they wouldn’t have enough money to to finish production,” he recalled. “So you’d go out and get distributors. They were guaranteed to put up the money on delivery. Then I would go to a bank — or really I went to Lew Horowitz. He would set up the financing with a bank and then as soon as the picture was delivered the distributor would pay the bank and everybody would be happy. It’s very similar to the structure that was done in the independent film market.”

Services will be held at Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills from 9:30 a.m. – 10 a.m. on July 31.

DEADLINE RELATED VIDEO: