Randeep Ramesh in Delhi
The Guardian, Friday 24 October 2008
It's a marriage made in movie heaven. Bollywood and Hollywood, which have long peddled shared visions of chaste romance and unlikely friendships, today finally ties the knot with Disney's first Indian-made animated feature film in Hindi: Roadside Romeo.
The movie, which took two years to make, tells the story of a pampered pet dog after he is abandoned on the streets of Mumbai. Released today, the film is a joint venture between Walt Disney Pictures and Yash Raj Films.
Being made in India meant the budget, thought to be $7m (£4m), was 15 times less than the average cost of Disney's Pixar movies such as Ratatouille.
Roadside Romeo features Bollywood songs and dance numbers and the voices of its leading couple, Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor.
Disney said it wanted to build a "brand that touches Indian families everyday, [and has] reach and relevance ... [Disney is] strong in building creative properties".
And with a slump in cinema takings expected in the west there is a rush to tap into the Bollywood box office.
Mahesh Samat, Disney's managing director in India, said: "India annually sees 3.6bn movie admissions ... [ticket prices are] expected to go up to 80 rupees [£1] in five years. Which means we are talking about a $7bn box office."
Disney's new film is part of a trend that has seen tinseltown and India's "place of illusions" grow ever closer. Earlier this month Rupert Murdoch's News Corp struck a multi-movie deal with a top Bollywood producer. The actor Will Smith has a two-movie deal with Mumbai-based UTV, while the Indian billionaire Anil Ambani has invested $300m in Steven Spielberg's new DreamWorks film studio
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Source: Turnover
June 11, 2007
Bollywood studio to list on AIM as chairman focuses on turnover
www.business.timesonline.co.uk
By Dan Sabbagh
UTV estimates that its studio has about 15 per cent of the Indian market, and that a film can typically generate about $1 million to $10 million at the box office, plus a little extra in home entertainment sales. By Dan Sabbagh
-UTV Motion Pictures is a spin-off from the Indian media conglomerate UTV Software Services, and the company is hoping to be worth $300 million, leaving British investors with 25 per cent.
-Because UTV Motion Pictures is a new entity, there are no historic turnover figures, although UTV’s film arm has turned over $50 million in the past.
Bollywood studio to list on AIM as chairman focuses on turnover
www.business.timesonline.co.uk
By Dan Sabbagh
UTV estimates that its studio has about 15 per cent of the Indian market, and that a film can typically generate about $1 million to $10 million at the box office, plus a little extra in home entertainment sales. By Dan Sabbagh
-UTV Motion Pictures is a spin-off from the Indian media conglomerate UTV Software Services, and the company is hoping to be worth $300 million, leaving British investors with 25 per cent.
-Because UTV Motion Pictures is a new entity, there are no historic turnover figures, although UTV’s film arm has turned over $50 million in the past.
Hollywood & Bollywood Box Office comparison
www.entertainment.timesonline.co.uk
Indian box office $5bn £2.5bn
www.guardian.co.uk (Gary Susman, Friday 31 August 2001)
US box office $126.8m $63.4m
World box office $148.2m $111.2m
www.entertainment.timesonline.co.uk, Ben Hoyle, Arts Reporter, March 2008
In the past ten years Bollywood has built a global audience bigger than Hollywood’s by updating its traditional themes and shabby production values to appeal to Indians abroad and the middle classes at home. Estimates of its box-office turnover range as high as $5 billion (£2.5 billion), up from $1.5 billion in 2004.
Indian box office $5bn £2.5bn
www.guardian.co.uk (Gary Susman, Friday 31 August 2001)
US box office $126.8m $63.4m
World box office $148.2m $111.2m
www.entertainment.timesonline.co.uk, Ben Hoyle, Arts Reporter, March 2008
In the past ten years Bollywood has built a global audience bigger than Hollywood’s by updating its traditional themes and shabby production values to appeal to Indians abroad and the middle classes at home. Estimates of its box-office turnover range as high as $5 billion (£2.5 billion), up from $1.5 billion in 2004.
Hypothesis
My hypothesis is that traditional forms make Bollywood film stronger; religon is an aspect of the restriction in the industry which gives power. This is why Bollywood films are individually powerful as they find alternative ways of expressing powerful emotions. Bollywood benefits as an industry as 'India is a country with 17 major languages, almost all of which are spoken by a populace larger than England.' There is six different major religious denominations and ethnic minorities which are the same size as entire Eastern European countries. Therefore the Bollywood industry is a uniting form that brings together this large audience all of which come from a different demographic. So the hypothesis is that the traditional elements in the films are part of the success of the Bollywood industry.
Source
September 29, 2008 (www.business.timesonline.co.uk)
Rhys Blakely in Bombay
Aware of India's potential, Warner Brothers, Sony and Viacom have earmarked funds to develop Indian films. In February, Disney invested £100million in UTV, an Indian media conglomerate and one of Bollywood's leading producers - the largest such cash injection by a Western company.
Rhys Blakely in Bombay
Aware of India's potential, Warner Brothers, Sony and Viacom have earmarked funds to develop Indian films. In February, Disney invested £100million in UTV, an Indian media conglomerate and one of Bollywood's leading producers - the largest such cash injection by a Western company.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
I started looking at Bollywood cinema because it was something I had never seen any examples of; i saw a sequence from K3G (Khabi Khushie Khabi Gham) in lower sixth in a world cinema class: I was interested in dance in Bollywood subsequently leading to the industry being a more succesful aternative to Hollywood which at the same time i didn't know anything about . I originally thought about researching the form of religion and its effect on film, and the different taboos and boundaries that the movies explore. Its clear looking at the films K3G, Devdas & Slumdog Millionaire that Indian films show dance expressing the film narrative. This occurs at emotive parts of the film to depict passion. The first sequence that I looked at was the expression of hidden love where the two lovers intimately connect with one another.
Critical Research Sources -
1. (Article from http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/may/20/news.india)
-The move also opens the door for Indian directors to work in Hollywood.
-Reliance is making a major move in putting Hollywood and Bollywood together.
(A Marriage Between the Cultures)
-The key will be whether you can make Indian movies that sell abroad and at the same time sell foreign stars in India," said Komal Nahta, the editor of Mumbai trade paper the Film Street Journal.
-The Indian film industry puts out 1,000 movies a year but is only a £1bn business. Hollywood produces half that number of films but has 10 times the sales.
-The reason for the lack of commercial success is that traditional Bollywood studios are family-run affairs which rely more on pandering to star talent than scouting for good scripts or sticking to budgets.
-The new deal is a step change for Indian studios, whose biggest movies to date cost around $15m.
A Link Between Culture, Institutions & Language
-Reliance, which already has 160 cinemas in India, will open a further 220 across North America to promote its new films.
-There is little doubt that Reliance, which has until now kept a low profile, aims to become India's biggest media house.
Ambani's Reliance empire already controls India's second biggest mobile phone operator and the largest FM radio station.
It has plans to launch a satellite TV platform and is creating a new 20-channel TV network. In February the financier George Soros paid $100m for a 3% stake in the entertainment arm, valuing the company at $3bn.
2. (Extract from http://web.uni-marburg.de/religionswissenschaft/journal/)
Marburg Journal of Religion (Volume 9, no1, September 2004)
-Indian movies and cultural identity
-The great success of Indian cinema can be traced back to an affinity for opulent dancing scenes
-the rigid censorship: kisses on the mouth, explicit sexuality and nudity are taboo.
-Popular Indian movies reflect social conflicts between tradition and modernity furthermore they often include a strong utopian notion
-Evidently Hindu rituals play a central role within the cinematic presentation of conflicts.
3. (An Introduction to Film Studies, edited by Jill Nelmes)
An Introduction to Indian Cinema, Asha Kasbekar
-‘India became independent in 1947.’
-‘A revolutionary decade in the film industry where a combination of talented individuals came together which led to film critics refer to 1950’s as the ‘golden age’ of Hindi cinema’
-‘Enthusiasm for the new republic gave fresh impetus to film production in the country.’
4. (Article from the Times Online http://business.timesonline.co.uk)
Spielberg close to movie deal with India's Reliance
Times Online and Agencies
-A deal would give director Steven Spielberg, one of the three media moguls who formed DreamWorks in 1994, enough cash to finance his DreamWorks team's departure from Viacom’s Paramount Pictures later this year.
-According to The Wall Street Journal, Reliance ADA Group, based in Mumbai and controlled by billionaire industrialist Anil Ambani, would provide Mr Spielberg and the company with between $500 million (£256 million) and $600 million in equity.
5.1 (BBC News Entertainment http://news.bbc.co.uk)
Dreamworks joins India’s Reliance
By Rajesh Merhandani
-The film studio Dreamworks, co-founded by Steven Spielberg, has agreed a joint venture with one of India's biggest entertainment conglomerates.
-It is a story of Hollywood meets Bollywood in a $1.5bn (£0.85bn) deal.
-Dreamworks was bought by movie giant Paramount Pictures in 2006. Under that arrangement, hit films like Transformers were made.
Institutuions
-Director/Producer Mr Spielberg has overseen some of the biggest box office hits including ET, Schindler's List and Jaws.
5.2 DreamWorks info
-DreamWorks is a major American film studio which develops, produces, and distributes films.
6. Reliance ADA Group info
-Companies like Reliance are looking to Hollywood to expand their portfolios and "create a new genre of crossover cinema" with talent from India and abroad
7. (Article from The Observer)
Steamy TV in India tests the limits of sex taboos
Gethin Chamberlain in Delhi, August 24 2008
-India ''a country where public discussion of sex remains taboo''
-''Until a few years ago even a kiss was banned in Indian films, and there was a commission of inquiry to decide whether kissing was part of Indian culture.'
India has a contradictory attitude to sex and religion as;
Bollywood is all gyrating hips and seductive dances, with the wet sari scenes that leave very little to the imagination a must for many directors; pictures of scantily clad women and smouldering men adorn the pages of the daily papers.
1. (Article from http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/may/20/news.india)
-The move also opens the door for Indian directors to work in Hollywood.
-Reliance is making a major move in putting Hollywood and Bollywood together.
(A Marriage Between the Cultures)
-The key will be whether you can make Indian movies that sell abroad and at the same time sell foreign stars in India," said Komal Nahta, the editor of Mumbai trade paper the Film Street Journal.
-The Indian film industry puts out 1,000 movies a year but is only a £1bn business. Hollywood produces half that number of films but has 10 times the sales.
-The reason for the lack of commercial success is that traditional Bollywood studios are family-run affairs which rely more on pandering to star talent than scouting for good scripts or sticking to budgets.
-The new deal is a step change for Indian studios, whose biggest movies to date cost around $15m.
A Link Between Culture, Institutions & Language
-Reliance, which already has 160 cinemas in India, will open a further 220 across North America to promote its new films.
-There is little doubt that Reliance, which has until now kept a low profile, aims to become India's biggest media house.
Ambani's Reliance empire already controls India's second biggest mobile phone operator and the largest FM radio station.
It has plans to launch a satellite TV platform and is creating a new 20-channel TV network. In February the financier George Soros paid $100m for a 3% stake in the entertainment arm, valuing the company at $3bn.
2. (Extract from http://web.uni-marburg.de/religionswissenschaft/journal/)
Marburg Journal of Religion (Volume 9, no1, September 2004)
-Indian movies and cultural identity
-The great success of Indian cinema can be traced back to an affinity for opulent dancing scenes
-the rigid censorship: kisses on the mouth, explicit sexuality and nudity are taboo.
-Popular Indian movies reflect social conflicts between tradition and modernity furthermore they often include a strong utopian notion
-Evidently Hindu rituals play a central role within the cinematic presentation of conflicts.
3. (An Introduction to Film Studies, edited by Jill Nelmes)
An Introduction to Indian Cinema, Asha Kasbekar
-‘India became independent in 1947.’
-‘A revolutionary decade in the film industry where a combination of talented individuals came together which led to film critics refer to 1950’s as the ‘golden age’ of Hindi cinema’
-‘Enthusiasm for the new republic gave fresh impetus to film production in the country.’
4. (Article from the Times Online http://business.timesonline.co.uk)
Spielberg close to movie deal with India's Reliance
Times Online and Agencies
-A deal would give director Steven Spielberg, one of the three media moguls who formed DreamWorks in 1994, enough cash to finance his DreamWorks team's departure from Viacom’s Paramount Pictures later this year.
-According to The Wall Street Journal, Reliance ADA Group, based in Mumbai and controlled by billionaire industrialist Anil Ambani, would provide Mr Spielberg and the company with between $500 million (£256 million) and $600 million in equity.
5.1 (BBC News Entertainment http://news.bbc.co.uk)
Dreamworks joins India’s Reliance
By Rajesh Merhandani
-The film studio Dreamworks, co-founded by Steven Spielberg, has agreed a joint venture with one of India's biggest entertainment conglomerates.
-It is a story of Hollywood meets Bollywood in a $1.5bn (£0.85bn) deal.
-Dreamworks was bought by movie giant Paramount Pictures in 2006. Under that arrangement, hit films like Transformers were made.
Institutuions
-Director/Producer Mr Spielberg has overseen some of the biggest box office hits including ET, Schindler's List and Jaws.
5.2 DreamWorks info
-DreamWorks is a major American film studio which develops, produces, and distributes films.
6. Reliance ADA Group info
-Companies like Reliance are looking to Hollywood to expand their portfolios and "create a new genre of crossover cinema" with talent from India and abroad
7. (Article from The Observer)
Steamy TV in India tests the limits of sex taboos
Gethin Chamberlain in Delhi, August 24 2008
-India ''a country where public discussion of sex remains taboo''
-''Until a few years ago even a kiss was banned in Indian films, and there was a commission of inquiry to decide whether kissing was part of Indian culture.'
India has a contradictory attitude to sex and religion as;
Bollywood is all gyrating hips and seductive dances, with the wet sari scenes that leave very little to the imagination a must for many directors; pictures of scantily clad women and smouldering men adorn the pages of the daily papers.
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