UTV's Indiagames releases Ghajini fitness application

Duresh Gupta - Televisionpoint.com | Mumbai
Bollywood actor Aamir Khan created quite a flutter by giving the Ghajini haircut to the executives of the multiplexes where his film was released. He is now training fitness freaks to sculpt a body like his character in his recently-released film.

Now, Indiagames, a part of entertainment company UTV, has released a fitness training mobile application based on the character's physique. The application describes the 125 exercise schedules the actor went through to get the ferocious look for his character in the film. The company has also released four mobiles games based on the film's story.

Ghajini, which released last month, is said to have broken records with Rs 200-crore box office collections within a fortnight of its release. The film is a romantic action thriller which explores the life of a rich businessman, played by Aamir, who suffers from short-term memory loss (anterograde amnesia) after being hit on his head.

With the help of instant camera images, he avenges the murder of his girlfriend, a model who is murdered just before he is injured. Aamir had trained for a year with celebrity trainer Satyajit Chourasia to get that eight pack-abs body, now the USP of the film. Indiagames has packed Aamir's exercise schedules into the application where an Aamir look-alike demonstrates each schedule.

"The application can be used regularly as a personalised gym trainer. "Both Aamir and Satyajit have personally worked on the application and the games. Aamir has directed the actions in the games, while Satyajit supervised the exercises in the application. Our 15-member team worked with both of them for nine months before the film's release." says, Samir Bangara, COO, Indiagames.

Bangara said the company's investment in this application was four times its investment in earlier games, though he refused to disclose the figure. "While Ghajini outsold other films, the uptake of content like images, videos etc was more than four times that of any other film. We expect the games and the fitness application to have a similar response," said Bangara.

Though Indiagames hopes to generate revenue on the games, industry experts believe that mobiles games are a loss-making proposition, primarily because of the monopoly of the mobile operators.

An industry player, on condition of anonymity, said, "Cellular operators have monopoly and do not disclose the download figures. A content provider has to accept whatever amount they share, whether he believes it or not."