Paramount Animation is developing an original animated musical comedy called Diya, a feature film that celebrates the spirit of Bollywood. The project was announced on 5 August 2026, with a creative team that spans Hollywood studio filmmaking and Indian streaming prestige (The Hollywood Reporter).

The story follows an Indian American teenage girl in New Jersey who unexpectedly finds herself transported into the world of a Bollywood musical. That premise pairs a Western coming-of-age frame with the song, dance and scale that define Hindi-language commercial cinema.

Nitya Mehra is attached to direct. Mehra served as executive producer and showrunner on the Prime Video series Made in Heaven and created the Prime Video show Big Girls Don't Cry. She is also co-creator, showrunner and director of Hunkkaar, which arrives on Hotstar on 18 September. Diya would be her first animated feature.

The script comes from Jaydeep Hasrajani and Jake Goldman. Hasrajani is an Indian-American animator and filmmaker who created Netflix's Boons and Curses and worked on The Powerpuff Girls, The Fungies! and Ghee Happy. Goldman is an Emmy-nominated writer with credits on Hero Inside, DC Metalforce, The Powerpuff Girls and Futurama.

Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley and Kunal Nayyar are producing. Goldstein and Daley produce through their GoldDay banner under a first-look deal with Paramount — a deal where the studio gets right of first refusal on their projects — with Sara Smith overseeing the film for the company. Nayyar produces through his Good Karma shingle, with Logan Kovarick executive producing.

Goldstein and Daley are also attached to direct an original Star Trek movie for Paramount, placing them squarely in the studio's feature pipeline. Their involvement in Diya comes through the producing side.

The project originated with Reel FX Animation Studios, which is set to produce. Reel FX has operated as both an animation services provider and an originator of its own projects, giving Diya a path from independent development to studio release.

For audiences, Diya sits at an intersection that animated features have rarely explored at this scale: an Indian diaspora story told through the musical vocabulary of Bollywood, animated for a global audience. No release date has been set.