Making inroads into Hollywood

Big brother Hollywood has finally realized the potential of Bollywood and is smitten by its hold over a vast audience. Much before Reliance Big Entertainment chief Anil Ambani made his move to enter into a joint venture with Hollywood biggie Steven Spielberg, the latter’s radar had picked up Bollywood’s strength and the fact that it can fill cinema halls like no Hollywood film ever could in India. Hollywood biggies like Sony Pictures and Warner Brothers, among others, which have always distributed their own films in India, now want to get into the production of Bollywood movies.

The much-hyped Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Saawariya is the first Hindi film produced by a Hollywood studio Sony Pictures Entertainment Films India. It’s a part of Sony Pictures, which encompasses motion picture production and distribution, television programming and syndication in 67 countries. Earlier, Sony Pictures had been the distributor for Lagaan, but Saawariya is the first movie that is a Sony Pictures financed and produced enterprise, though it could impress neither cine-goers nor box-office.
Not only Sony Pictures, there is almost every Hollywood studio which is looking eastward to Bollywood’s huge fan base and jingling box-office returns. Warner Brothers and Walt Disney Studios are prominent of them to embrace Bollywood after Sony Pictures and they have already zeroed in on projects in India.
Warner Brothers has ventured into Ramesh Sippy’s Chandni Chowk to China, starring Akshay Kumar under the direction of Nikhil Advani. The film is being shot in China. So, fans of Akshay Kumar’s brand of comedy and martial arts will have a field day!
Akshay plays Sidhu, a Mumbai cook, who is mistaken for a martial arts hero. Deepika Padukone is playing the female lead in the film. Written by Shridhar Raghavan (Khakee, Bluff Master), the film is having the music by well-known trio Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy.
Walt Disney Studios has co-produced an animated film in India with Yash Raj Films. The film is titled Roadside Romeo, which is set for release this year. The film is being directed by Jugal Hansraj. This animation film will utilize the voices of top stars like Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor.
Hollywood is not just inclined towards India to produce films, but many Hollywood movies are being outsourced to the country for visual effects. Ever since The Golden Compass won an Oscar this year, the Indian animation and visual effects sector are more in demand.
Director Chris Weitz’s The Golden Compass, starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, outsourced most of its visual effect shots to the Mumbai set up of Culver City, the California-based firm Rhythm & Hues.
Quite recently, US-based Indian filmmaker Mira Nair’s Tabu and Irfan Khan-starrer The Namesake made a good impact abroad, which shows that Indian films are no more alien to the Westerners.
The film seems to have touched a chord among audiences beyond the Diaspora-driven NRI audiences, who immediately associated with the theme of cultural displacement. The film’s impact went beyond cultural boundaries. Not just Indian films are attracting Hollywood filmmakers — even Bollywood actors like hottie Bipasha Basu is all set to make her presence felt in Hollywood now! Of late, Bollywood beauties have begun catching a lot of attention in Hollywood. Bipasha caught the attention of many people throughout the world when she hosted the New Seven Wonders of the World event in Lisbon in July last year with Hollywood stars Hilary Swank and Ben Kingsley.
Bipasha is going to work in a couple of English movies to be made by prominent Hollywood studios. Gorgeous Aishwarya Rai is already working in Pink Panther 2. Sultry Mallika Sherawat will be seen as a Muslim woman in Unveiled. And charming Celina Jaitley also signed a Hollywood project recently.
If Hollywood fits into the shoes of Bollywood, the experiment would produce many winners, create a huge new audience for Hollywood studios, infuse new money into Indian films and offer many more films for diehard Bollywood fans worldwide. An added bonus: Americans will learn to pronounce difficult Hindi words!