Bollywood rising...
Bollywood dreams grow bigger : HindustanTimes.com
For several months, I have mentioned the growing swell of interest in cultural cross over content between the U.S. and Bollywood. Saibal Chatterjee gives us the run down of the latest deals and production slates for co-productions between the two largest movie markets:Excerpts:
For years, the Bollywood production sector has been laying claims to imaginary global conquests.
[A] couple of Mumbai film production houses seek to expand their universe by going in for tie-ups with important Hollywood players.
Coupled with the fact that several Hollywood majors – Paramount and Sony Pictures among them – are eyeing India as a production base, the move by the likes of Adlabs and UTV Motion Pictures to globalise their business points to a welcome rise in Bollywood’s confidence levels.
UTV, which is already in partnership with Fox Searchlight for Mira Nair’s The Namesake, has now entered into a formal co-production deal with the Hollywood company to co-produce a slate of films.
UTV has also inked an agreement with actor Will Smith’s Overbrook Entertainment and Sony Pictures for the production of films for worldwide distribution.
Sony Pictures Entertainment will distribute the UTV-Overbrook co-productions, two live action films and one animation feature, worldwide, with the exception of India. As the Bollywood dreams grow bigger, the world is destined to become smaller.
Another Indian company that has made rapid strides in the attempt to reach key global markets is the Reliance-owned Adlabs. It has a five-year 50-50 co-production arrangement with Ashok Amritraj’s Los Angeles-based Hyde Park Entertainment for a spate of films.
The first one in that line-up, Asylum, is all set to role with director David Ellis (of Snakes on a Plane fame) at the helm. Adlabs is also getting into the animated motion picture business, while setting up offices in the US and the UK in order to distribute 20-odd films globally every year.
The Hollywood majors, too, have begun to see the advantages of growing out of the distribution-only mode and entering the full-fledged film production business in India. Tom Freston, CEO, Viacom, had said at the Ficci Frames conference in Mumbai earlier this year: “We want to produce films here; we don’t want to just distribute.”
The Viacom/Paramount Pictures has already set up a production office in India to pursue plans to make films in this country and distribute them worldwide. Sony Pictures is co-producing Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s youthful love story, Saawariya.
