Bollywood Hollywired!

A few years ago, India's crossover queen Aishwarya Rai made it to the cover of the Time magazine. In India, it was then considered a nod to Bollywood's emerging international clout.

But recently, when Newsweek put Ronnie Screwala, a relatively newcomer Bollywood producer, on its cover, it signalled the marking of a new faultline in the world of entertainment business. More than a nod, it was a screaming acknowledgement that Bollywood had remarkably arrived on the international entertainment scene. It was time Hollywood, the world's richest and most influential film industry, took its minuscule contender, Bollywood, the world's largest producer of films, seriously!

On the other side, the news has brought a fresh bout of enthusiasm and excitement to Bollywood's upcoming directors, especially those who do not belong to the established film production houses such as Yashraj Films (Run by veteran filmmaker Yash Chopra and his son Aditya Chopra who produced India's biggest blockbuster ever, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge), Dharma Productions (of Karan Johar of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Kahbhi Khushi Kabhi Gham fame) or Factory (of filmmaker Ramgopal Varma, the maker of hits such as Satya and Sarkar), just to name a few.

Emerging Bollywood writer and director Anurag Kashyap (Black Friday, 2007; No Smoking, 2007) cried on his blog: "Believe me, there is going to be a change in order in this Hindi film industry. There definitely is a new wave, I have seen it coming, the world is also seeing it which is why Ronnie Screwwala is on the cover of NEWSWEEK and not Aishwarya Rai or Yashraj or Amitabh Bachchan."

For upcoming filmmakers like Anurag, entry of Hollywood symbolises the end of the tyranny of the status quo in Bollywood, for Bollywood's new blood wants an end of the dominance of the few "mom-and-pop" variety of filmmaking houses in the Hindi film industry.

Aiding them in this endeavour are the Hollywood studios. Bollywood filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt once said that Bollywood is connected to Hollywood by some invisible umbilical cord. He was talking in terms of Hollywood's influence on Bollywood. Well, in the new century, the umbilical cord is becoming increasingly visible. And there are some cold reasons for this.

Bollywood has been seeing domestic and foreign boom in its reach and revenues. In 2006, India's film business grossed about $2 billion, up from $1.5 billion in 2004, reported The Newsweek. Revenue will leap to more than $4 billion over the next five years, forecasts PricewaterhouseCoopers. Bollywood’s gain in the overseas market is stupendous. Some Indian producers are realizing up to 30% of their total earnings from the overseas market. In Europe, Bollywood has increasingly taken the centrestage, getting quite popular in Germany, Poland, Russia, and England. The USA, Canada and UK are the major export destinations. Other territories such as Japan, South Africa, Mauritius, Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East are fast becoming important markets for Indian films.

The game is getting global, the pie is increasing but Hollywood is not getting any of it.

For despite its presence for a long time, Hollywood could not increase its box office share in India's entertainment sector. In fact, Hollywood's market share on India's box office has been swinging between 5 and 8%. The only way it can increase its box office profits in India, they reckoned, is through financing Bollywood films. So, if you can't beat them, join them seems to be the idea behind this jockeying. That's why all these Hollywood giants are flocking to Bollywood.

But why now?

"Apart from the business angle which is the main angle," says Prakash Jha, a veteran Bollywood director and producer (Gangajal, 2001 and Apaharan, 2005), explaining the factors that is drawing Hollywood studios to Bollywood, "the Hollywood studios are also sort of trying to look at the consolidation of Indian production and distribution outlets, corporatisation and some kind of fiscal discipline. They are now surer of taking advantage of this."

With 11,000 domestic screens and millions of eager eyeballs, it is this whopping domestic and foreign success of Bollywood that is inspiring its filmmakers to thing big, think global. So, buyoed by Bollywood's success, when Indian filmmakers like Screwala start gunning for even Hollywood, the world takes note of them. It is remarkable that The Newsweek dubbed Indian film producer Ronnie Screwvala as "the front runner in the race to become Bollywood's Jack Warner—the man who began the transformation of parochial U.S. cinema into its modern global form." Screwvala, the man behind the super hit Rang De Basanti (2006), produced Mira Nair-directed The Namesake, and is now coproducing The Happening, a new sci-fi thriller directed by M. Night Shyamalan with a budget of $57 million. "Our ambition is to be a global Indian entertainment company—there's no reason we can't make big-budget Hollywood movies, too," Screwvala told The Newsweek.

Srewwala's rise has been spectacular. An impressed Disney has bought a 15 percent stake in his UTV for $14 million in 2006. UTV already has forged coproduction deals with Fox Searchlight and Sony Pictures, as well as with Will Smith's Overbrook Entertainment.

But other players are also getting into the game in a big way. Sony Picture was the first to step in and its first film Saawariya, directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali is releasing in November during Diwali. Viacom has inked a 50-50 joint venture deal with Raghav Bahl, head of Network 18. The venture, called Viacom 18, will produce and distribute TV shows, digital media and (eventually) 10 to 12 movies a year. Together, they have raised $112 million from a London Stock Exchange flotation. Also, three Indian studios held IPOs in London this year, raising a combined $220 million.

Before Viacom jumped into the fray, Disney made a deal with Yash Raj Films in June to take both companies into India's growing CGI animation business. The deal is to make one cartoon film budgeted at $4 million-$10 million each year.

The latest Hollywood studio to gamble on the Bollywood game is, as Variety recently reported, Warner Bros. It is backing its first India production, the action comedy Made in China, to be directed by Nikhil Advani. At a budget of US$12 million, it will be the most expensive Bollywood film yet.

So, where would Bollywood go from here? Will it affect the nature of Bollywood's narratives that is the hallmark of Hindi films? "I don't think the variety of films is likely to change very much," says Jha.

Will then Hollywood's entry in Bollywood shake up the established production houses in Mumbai?

Jha does not think so. "No, they will continue to dominate because most of the times these collaborations would be with these corporate houses. Sanjay Leela Bhansali is collaborating with Sony Pictures. He's got a brand which is acceptable to the western market. Yash Chopra is also collaborating with them for animation films and multiple products. So, collaborations with big Indian production houses are bound to happen."

Unlike Kashyap, Jha is not sure if Hollywood studios will promote new talent in Bollywood. "The new talent is getting promoted by the India corporate houses anyway," he told Today. "You are seeing Percept Pictures or Adlab Films or Reliance Entertainment are working both with tried hands and also the new hands. All kinds of films are being made because now there are possibilities of exhibiting these films in terms of limited shows in multiplexes. That was the sort of thing which was not available previously."

Agrees Gitesh Pandya, the editor of United States-based BoxofficeGuru.com and a film commentator on CNN: “As more companies from both countries tie up and make films together, we will probably see bigger and better films, especially if the projects involve the most talented filmmakers. New filmmakers will have more opportunities, but those who have been making films for generations will still have their place in the business.”

Whatever way the ball swings, it is great time for Bollywood filmmakers, for they would make hay (and some good movies too) while the sun shines. And most importantly, Bollywood might not barter its spicy grand narrative style for Hollywood’s money. Who can put it better than the king of Bollywood Shah Rukh Khan himself: “My point is I do not want your money. I want your knowledge and technology. I am glad Sony, Columbia and Warner are all here. I like the tie up Yashraj has done with Walt Disney for animation. You tell me how to do it and I will tell my own story. I would like to collaborate with scriptwriters from there. They speak the international language better than we do. I would like to learn that. But the story would be mine and I would shoot it the way I want to.” (Outlook, Oct 22).

An edited version of this article appeared in The Weekend Today (Oct 27).

A question of justice

Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt has emerged, for all the wrong reasons, as the poster boy for the Mumbai bomb blasts. Scores of others, the non-Bollywood type perpetrators of the crime, the ones you might have seen in Anurag Kashyap's Black Friday, have got death sentences and life imprisonments.

But some have chosen to look deeper into the issue, beyond the gloss and the mayhem:

Professor Amitava Kumar asks on his blog:

The verdicts have finally been delivered in the Bombay blasts case. Most of the guilty are in jail. But the bombings had been in response to the earlier riots, in which three times more people were killed. Why have those who were guilty of inciting violence and murder during the riots gone unpunished?

Vir Sanghvi writes on the Mumbai blast verdict in HT:

No Muslim family who lost everything in those riots received anything like justice, let alone compensation. The murderers, unrepentant to the end, were elected to high office and the policemen who facilitated the massacres were promoted. Official inquiries into the riots (such as the Srikrishna Report) were ignored. And then, after the blasts, TADA was used indiscriminately against honest and blameless Muslims.

So let’s not waste our time worrying about Indian Muslims and Al-Qaeda. Let’s stick to our own riots and our own terrorist reprisals. The Bombay blasts case shows that the bombers have been (fairly) punished. But the rioters still run free, and the victims of those massacres have found no justice.

Rather than be concerned about a few inept doctors and a couple of failed car bombs in a faraway country, let’s think about our own blasts and our own system of justice. And let’s pause to consider whether the next time a bomb goes off in Bombay we should blame Osama bin Laden or whether we should consider our own failure to provide justice to those whose families, homes and lives were destroyed in the Bombay riots.

Black Friday

I have been a fan of Anurag Kashyap even before I had seen his directorial debut, Black Friday (2004, as per IMDB records). Actually, his directorial debut was Paanch which was never released (not yet at least).

Anurag has been doing terrific work with directors like Ram Gopal Varma (Satya), Mani Ratnam (Yuva) and Deepa Mehta (Water), among others. But I've been a fan simply because of his doggedness to his purpose. Such a talented man and yet he had to wait for nearly one and half decades for his film to see the light of the day. But he never gave up. He was extremely depressed but he kept on walking. And finally, he has made it. Anyone who sees Black Friday will recognize the talent that he is. Even if we have had half a dozen filmmakers like Anurag in Bombay, the face of Hindi cinema would change. Look what has happenend to great Indian filmmakers like Shyam Benegal, Muzaffar Ali, Gulzar, and Govind Nihalani--they are either spent forces or they don't get the financial backing for the kind of projects they want to do. But they seem to be living in a time warp, and they don't have the idiom to portray the dangerous realities of contemporay lives (or maybe they have become complacent--been there, done that kind of feeling).

I don't have much hope from filmmakers like Aditya Chopra (he looked promising in Mohabbatein), Sanjay Ghadvi (Dhoom 1 and 2) and Karan Johar and co. They are all into commecial cinema, big budget, big bucks cinema. I thought Ram Gopal Varma was India's Tarantino but he too seems to have got enticed by the business of filmmaking at the cost of its artistic side.

Similarly, after showing talent in Black, Sanjay L Bhansali has got back to the tested and tried stuff, as in his upcoming Saawariya. I respect Bhansali, not because he did a great job in Black (which he did) but because he let Ravi K Chandran take such beautiful shots throughout the film. Each and every frame was mindblowing (not in a realistic way though, not the kind of realistic cinematography that you would see in a Satyajit Ray film) but beautiful in its own right.

I had great hopes from Shekhar Kapur too (after Bandit Queen) but he seemed to have lost it after he made his foray in Hollywood. But thank God, after watching the trailer of Elizabeth: The Golden Age, I am confident that Shekhar will bounce back with his best work ever.

Sorry for the digression. All I wanted to say was that Anurag is a great talent and he should not waver from his integrity and purposefullness. I hope he emerges as India's Oliver Stone (yes, I too hate these comparisions but how else can I say it).

Black Friday is just perfect. The film, based on Hussain Zaidi's book tracing the origins of the 1993 Bombay bomb blasts, can be summed up by the first and last lines (quotes/titles) of the film. The film begins with Gandhi's quote: An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. And it ends with the title card: And now Bombay is called Mumbai. In between lies the truth, told from the persective of police investigators and the statements issued by the Muslim "terrorists". The acting is natural, and Pavan Malhotra, Aditya Srivastava and Kay Kay are amazing. Pavan too could have become as good as Irfan Khan but he perhaps lost it somewhere.

I have only one minor grouse aganist the film. What is it with the red filters Mr Kashyap? They look so odd, and give the viewers a feeling of discomfort. Just because some South East Asian filmmakers use it does not make it automatically cool. Please follow your own instintcs.

Bollywood comes to Britain

As the latest edition of IIFA Awards go to Sheffield, UK, in June, trite articles on Bollywood have started to appear in the UK media.

Here's The Telegraph's take on the Bollywood fever:

Where Bollywood films were once seen only in specialist cinemas in predominantly Asian areas, they are now routinely programmed alongside mainstream films in multiplexes.

And Bollywood producers are increasingly using British locations and actors, or making films with substantial English dialogue as well as Hindi and other Asian languages. Namastey London - a bittersweet romance about a British-Asian woman and her arranged marriage to an Indian national - was shot largely in the UK, while Goal, about an Asian football league and entirely shot here, will be released later this year. About 15-20 Bollywood films a year are made at least partly in the UK.

So why the surge in interest? Akshay Kumar, Bollywood heartthrob and star of Namastey London, says: "India is 'in' - it's gone global. When you have one of the world's fastest-growing economies, people become interested in its culture and history. And Bollywood films have a unique quality that no other filmmakers can produce."

I wonder why the Blacks and the Black Fridays from Bollywood are not mentioned?