Pen Studios (formerly Popular Entertainment Network) is an

Indian film The cinema of India, consisting of motion pictures made by the Indian film industry, has had a large effect on world cinema since the second half of the 20th century. Indian cinema is made up of various film industries, each focused on pr ...

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stat ...

and

distribution Distribution may refer to: Mathematics *Distribution (mathematics), generalized functions used to formulate solutions of partial differential equations *Probability distribution, the probability of a particular value or value range of a varia ...

company established by Dr.

Jayantilal Gada Jayantilal Gada (Not to be confused with Jayantilal from TMKOC) is an Indian film producer and distributor. He ventured into film production under his production company, Popular Entertainment Network (PEN) India Ltd. He is known for produci ...

on 31 March 1987. Based in

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

, it mainly produces and distributes

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

and

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of South India ** Telugu literature, is the body of works written in the Telugu language. * Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Tel ...

films. In 1992, the business was restructured under the name Popular Entertainment Network, and began to acquire video rights for movies to be distributed over various media such as video cassettes, satellites, terrestrial platforms, etc. The company subsequently forayed into theatrical and distribution rights of movies. In the past few years, Pen Studios has produced films such as ''

Kahaani ''Kahaani'' (; ) is a 2012 Indian Hindi-language action thriller film co-written, co-produced, and directed by Sujoy Ghosh. It stars Vidya Balan as Vidya Bagchi, a pregnant woman looking for her missing husband in Kolkata during the festiv ...

and

Shivaay ''Shivaay'' is a 2016 Indian Hindi-language action thriller film directed and produced by Ajay Devgn under his banner Ajay Devgn Films from a story written by Sandeep Shrivastava. The film stars Ajay Devgn in the title role along with debu ...

'', with many A-listers, that have been a huge success at the box office. The company, now, is also expanding by focusing on producing good regional content. Pen India Limited launched a new Television Channel named WOW. WOW's content library is full of various old and new Hindi film musics and movies to latest Gujarati, Hindi dubbed (Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada) films, and TV series such as ''Mahabharat''.

Initial years

Dr. Jayantilal Gada started as a small-time entrepreneur with a video library called Popular Video Cassette Co in 1984. Later, he went into trading of video rights and distribution of VHS tapes across India by establishing Asia's biggest video shop, "Popular Video", at Lamington Road, Mumbai.

Brief history

Restructured and formed Popular Entertainment Network Limited (with brand name 'PEN') in 1992 and started dealing in

copyrights A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...

of Hindi feature films viz.

video Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

and

Doordarshan Doordarshan (), abbreviated as DD, is India's State-owned enterprise, state-owned public broadcasting, public television broadcaster. Established by the Government of India on 15 September 1959, it is owned by the Ministry of Information and B ...

(DD). In 1995, PEN created another landmark by telecasting ''

Sholay ''Sholay'' (, ) is a 1975 Indian epic action-adventure film directed by Ramesh Sippy, produced by his father G. P. Sippy, and written by Salim–Javed. The film is about two criminals, Veeru (Dharmendra) and Jai (Amitabh Bachchan), hired ...

'' 20 years after its theatrical release on Doordarshan and creating a record with the highest ever Television viewing ratings (76 TRPs) with about 7.5

crore Crore (; abbreviated cr) denotes the quantity ten million (107) and is equal to 100 lakh in the Indian numbering system. In many international contexts, the decimal quantity is formatted as 10,000,000, but when used in the context of the India ...

revenues. Daughter Bhavita Jayantilal Gada also joined PEN in 2006 and started an animation division with mega projects like ''

Mahabharat The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; , , ) is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India revered as Smriti texts in Hinduism, the other being the '' Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the events and aftermath of the Kurukshetra War, a war of succes ...

''. In 2009, son Dhaval Gada, after completing his course at

Whistling Woods International Institute __NOTOC__ Whistling Woods International is a film, communication and creative arts institute located in Mumbai, India. Founded in 2006 by Subhash Ghai. The institute is promoted by the Indian Filmmaker Subhash Ghai, Mukta Arts and Film City M ...

, joined PEN to streamline production activities.

Film history

In 2012, PEN's maiden production ''

'' with

Sujoy Ghosh Sujoy Ghosh (born 21 May 1966) is an Indian film director, actor, producer, and screenwriter who works in Hindi films. He has directed '' Jhankaar Beats'' (2003), '' Home Delivery: Aapko... Ghar Tak'' (2005), '' Aladin'' (2009), ''Kahaani'' (20 ...

proves successful at the box office. In 2013, PEN released three projects: ''

Issaq ''Issaq'' () is a 2013 Indian Hindi-language romantic film directed by Manish Tiwary and produced by Dhaval Gada and Shailesh R. Singh. The film, written by Padmaja Thakore-Tiwary, Manish Tiwary and Pawan Sony, was released on 26 July 2013. T ...

'', released all over India in 900 theatres. ''

Singh Saab the Great ''Singh Saab the Great'' is a 2013 Indian Hindi-language action drama film directed by Anil Sharma. The film stars Sunny Deol, Amrita Rao, Urvashi Rautela and Prakash Raj as main characters. The film marks the return of Sunny Deol to the acti ...

'' on 1970 screens in India. '' Mahabharat 3D'' animation feature film also released in 300 theatres. In 2014, PEN completed and finally released ''Sholay 3D'' in 780 theatres in India. PEN also co-produces and distributes

Nagesh Kukunoor Nagesh Kukunoor (born 30 March 1967) is an Indian film director, producer, screenwriter and actor known for his works predominantly in Hindi cinema, and few Telugu films. He is known for his works in parallel cinema, such as '' Hyderabad Blues' ...

's Art House film '' Lakshmii'' on 82 screens, ''Entertainment'' in 3,200 screens worldwide. PEN also distributed and released ''

Ekkees Toppon Ki Salaami ''Ekkees Toppon Ki Salaami'' () is a 2014 Indian Hindi satire film directed by Ravindra Gautam and produced by Saurabh Tewari and Abhinav Shukla under the banner of Nautanki Films. The film stars Anupam Kher, Divyendu Sharma, Manu Rishi, Adit ...

'' on 490 screens and

Ketan Mehta Ketan Mehta (born 21 July 1952) is an Indian film director, producer and screenwriter who has also directed documentaries and television serials since 1975. Early life and education Born on 21 July 1952 in Navsari in Gujarat, Mehta did his sch ...

's ''

Rang Rasiya ''Rang Rasiya'', titled ''Colours of Passion'' in English, is a 2014 Indian drama film written and directed by Ketan Mehta, based on the life of the 19th century Indian painter Raja Ravi Varma. It was released bilingually in Hindi as ''Rang Ra ...

'' on 890 screens. PEN has been associated in the past with films such as ''

Sauda Sauda ''()'' is a municipality in Rogaland county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Sauda, where most of the population lives. Other villages in the municipality include Saudasjøen and Amdal. Despite being ...

(1995)'', ''

Kohram ''Kohram'' is a 1999 Indian Hindi-language Action-thriller film, action thriller film directed by Mehul Kumar. It features an ensemble cast of Amitabh Bachchan, Nana Patekar, Jaya Prada, Tabu (actress), Tabu, Mukul Dev, Mukesh Rishi, Danny Denzo ...

'' (1999), ''

Lal Baadshah ''Lal Baadshah'' () is a 1999 Indian Hindi-language action drama film directed by K. C. Bokadia, starring Amitabh Bachchan in a dual role, Raghuvaran, Manisha Koirala, Shilpa Shetty and Amrish Puri. Nirupa Roy also appears in her last film ...

'' (1999), ''

Kitne Door Kitne Paas ''Kitne Door Kitne Paas'' () is a 2002 Indian Hindi cinema, Hindi-language romantic drama film directed by Mehul Kumar. It stars Fardeen Khan and Amrita Arora. Plot Two young Indians, a man named Jatin and a woman named Karishma, meet on an ...

'' (2002), '' Shararat'' (2002), and ''

Yeh Mera India ''Yeh Mera India'' (also known as ''Y.M.I. Yeh Mera India'') is a 2009 Indian Hindi-language drama film written and directed by N. Chandra. The film stars Anupam Kher, Perizaad Zorabian, Sayaji Shinde Purab Kohli, Rajpal Yadav, Sarika, and Seema B ...

'' (2009) as rights=holders and not as a production.

TV Channels

* BFlix Movies (Nitestv.online Movies) * All Time Movies

Defunct

* I Love

Filmography

Production

Distribution

References

External links

* {{official website Film production companies based in Mumbai Indian companies established in 1987 1987 establishments in Maharashtra Film distributors of India Mass media companies established in 1987