By ERIC BELLMAN
MUMBAI — When Amit Khanna arrived in Hollywood two years ago, few knew who he was. But the chairman of India’s Reliance Big Entertainment was ushered into the homes and offices of Tom Hanks, Brad Pitt and Will Smith because they knew his billionaire boss was looking to pump money into movie production.
“Everyone wanted to meet us,” says Mr. Khanna.
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Reliance Big Entertainment
Director Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider of DreamWorks with investor Anil Ambani (second from left) and Amitabh Jhunjhunwala, far right, an executive with Big Entertainment’s parent company, Reliance ADA Group.
Mr. Khanna’s boss, Indian industrialist Anil Ambani, wants to move Hollywood into Bollywood in a big way. In August, Big Entertainment signed a deal where it paid $325 million for a 50% stake in Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks SKG and the right to distribute its movies in India.
Big Entertainment’s deal with DreamWorks marks the arrival of a new global player in the entertainment industry. After only two years, Big Entertainment has spent a billion dollars expanding its entertainment empire — which spans theaters, television and radio — and plans to spend billions more.
Mr. Khanna, who recently outlined plans for Big Entertainment in an interview, says they hope to begin the distribution with one of Mr. Spielberg’s films next year.
Big Entertainment has entered separate pacts with Hollywood stars to provide financial backing for scripts, which in return, would give the Indian company an option to co-finance any of the resulting films that are picked up by Hollywood studios.
Mr. Ambani, in asking Hollywood to supply the content for his Indian customers, has essentially engineered a reverse outsourcing deal — and Mr. Spielberg is the company’s test-case.
Big Entertainment will take DreamWorks movies in the works, such as “Cowboys and Aliens,” “Dinner for Schmucks” and “39 Clues,” and sell them through its theaters, its satellite networks, its movie-rental service, its radio stations and even its phones.
“We have a presence in every platform,” Mr. Khanna says, referring to the media buzz phrase of “four-screen presence,” meaning the big screen, cellphones, computers and televisions.
Big Entertainment’s parent company, Reliance ADA Group, owns India’s second largest cellular company, Reliance Communications. And because more Indians have cellphones than computers, Reliance is hoping to push pieces of the Hollywood content — such as music, ringtones and movie clips — through mobile devices.
In addition to its TV and radio stations, the company has built Bollywood’s biggest movie studio, a satellite-TV service and a global chain of movie theaters as well as India’s versions of Blockbuster and Netflix.
The Indian movie business has long been dominated by mom-and-pop shops that make films without the budgets, schedules or story boards that are the norm in the U.S. industry.
In contrast, Big Entertainment is embracing the Hollywood modus operandi of big budgets, publicity spending and wide distribution. The company is shopping Bollywood films around at film festivals at an unprecedented rate, Mr. Khanna says.
Big Entertainment will test its lessons from Hollywood with “Kites,” a movie that aims to target audiences outside of India. With a budget of $30 million, it is one of the most expensive Indian movies made.
“Kites” stars the hunky Indian actor Hrithik Roshan and is written and directed by Indians. But it’s set in Las Vegas and performed in English, and the foreign version of the film has chopped out all the song and dance sequences that are hallmarks of traditional Bollywood productions. (The numbers will be included in the Indian version.)
The 50-year-old Mr. Ambani is an heir to one of India’s great corporate fortunes, a textile, telecom and power empire called Reliance group. After his father died, Mr. Ambani and his older brother Mukesh split the group. The Ambani brothers, who don’t get along, were at one point worth more than $70 billion combined.
More than Mukesh, Anil has become a part of Bollywood — the name for the Indian movie industry based in the city of Bombay, now known as Mumbai. Mr. Ambani married a former movie actress and hangs out with some of India’s biggest stars.
While Mr. Ambani is also a big fan of Mr. Spielberg — “Raiders of the Lost Ark” is one of his favorite movies — his associates say he’s in the venture for fortune not fame.
Some analysts and investors think Reliance’s connection to Mr. Spielberg could provide the scale needed for an eventual public offering of stock. Amitabh Jhunjhunwala, group managing director of Reliance ADA group, said they aren’t planning one any time soon.
The history of foreign investors in Hollywood is long and rocky. The 1980s saw a flood of Japanese investors without much success. In 1994, for example, Sony Corp. had to write off $3.2 billion on its investment in Columbia Pictures Entertainment Inc., which the Japanese electronics company had bought five years earlier for $5 billion.
Reliance executives say they hope to avoid mistakes by not becoming too involved in making the movies.
“Do you think I will go and tell them where to place the camera?” asks Mr. Khanna, who has written hundreds of film songs and a dozen movie scripts for Bollywood. “That would be stupid.”
The world’s most famous couple, Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan, appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show yesterday.
Indian actors, hailing from the Bollywood film industry, Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan are the most talked about couple in India, and indeed, the world. Their interview with Oprah aired yesterday on the “Meet the Most Famous People in the World” episode of the Oprah Winfrey Show.
Aishwarya Rai, who was crowned Miss World in 1994, went on to become one of Bollywood’s most coveted leading ladies, and has done over 40 films to date, including Pink Panther 2. Abhishek Bachchan is son of Bollywood’s beloved and legendary actors - Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan, and has himself achieved superstar status and starred in over 40 films so far.
Abhi and Ash (as they are referred to in India) have over 5 billion fans around the globe. That definitely makes them the world’s most famous couple! In their interview with Oprah, they discussed their relationship, being the most sought after couple in India, and their family values and customs.
It is the norm for Indian couples to live with the husband’s parents in their home, and Oprah didn’t fail to ask the famous couple about their living arrangements with Abhi’s parents.
"It's normal," Ash says. "It's absolutely natural to us. … I lived with my parents before we got married, so it's a natural thing." Abhi added that his grandparents also lived with them before they passed away.
What’s interesting to note are the cultural differences that exist in Indian films as opposed to films in other parts of the world.
"For example, boy meets girl, they fall in love, they want to express their love for each other. So in the West, they would kiss, and they're in love. In India, we have a song," Abhi says. "You have this intimate moment, and suddenly—snap, cut—you're in the mountains singing and dancing!" "It’s fun!" Aishwarya added.
Mohanlal’s 2007 hit film, Chota Mumbai is on the brink of having its Tamil remake. It will star Tamil actor Vijay and be his 50th film. The film, titled Sura, is not yet confirmed but according to sources, it is indeed a remake of Chota Mumbai.
Southern actress Trisha describes her entry into Bollywood as dream debut and thanks her mentor, filmmaker Priyadarshan, who launched her in Tamil movies with Lesa Lesa seven years ago, for now introducing her to Hindi films as well.
Priyan has signed Trisha for the Hindi movie "Khatta Meetha" opposite Bollywood star Akshay Kumar.
My lucky director Priyadarshan, who introduced me in Tamil movies, is giving me a break in Hindi films too. After my debut in 'Lesa, Lesa', I was reticent about my career. Now with a firm foot in southern cinema, things have worked out for Bollywood as well, thanks to Priyadarshan. I have a meaty role on par with Akshay in the movie.
