News is out that Amitabh Bachchan has been cast by Baz Luhrmann for the fourth rendition of F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. While Leonardo DiCaprio plays the enigmatic Jay Gatsby, Tobey Maguire plays Nick Carraway and Bachchan plays shady businessman Meyer Wolfsheim. Bachchan, who makes his Hollywood debut after more than 40 years in filmdom, has tweeted that he will do the film for free. Luhrmann had met Bachchan in India last year and presented him with a painting; then, last month, he called and offered this role to the ageing superstar. Bachchan has travelled to Sydney to read the script and attend the costume rehearsals.
This isn’t the first time a Bollywood actor will be seen in Hollywood. Those who have seen David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia will remember I S Johar’s role. Amrish Puri was the evil Mola Ram in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Danny Denzongpa starred alongside Brad Pitt in Seven Years in Tibet (based on Heinrich Harrer’s bestseller) and Naseeruddin Shah played Captain Nemo in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The difference between then and now is the pace at which Bollywood actors are being signed for Hollywood roles. Apart from Bachchan, Anil Kapoor will be seen in Mission Impossible IV and Cities, Irrfan Khan in The Amazing Spiderman and Life of Pi, Freida Pinto in Immortals (after the recent Rise of the Planet of the Apes) and Mallika Sherawat in Politics of Love. More assignments will sure be announced in the days ahead.
They might all be great actors, I am sure, but this is also a clever ploy by the Hollywood studios to build bridges with India. At the moment, India is small for Hollywood. David Cameron’s Avatar, which grossed $2.6 billion worldwide, earned only around Rs 140 crore, or around $30 million, in India. So, India gave a tad over one per cent to the film’s revenue (it was made on a budget of $300 million). Though, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Hollywood’s contribution to Indian film business improved from 3.9 per cent in 2009 to 4.6 per cent in 2010, it is still small. But India is a high-growth market. PwC says filmed entertainment in the country will grow 9.3 per cent per annum from Rs 8,750 crore in 2010 to Rs 13,650 crore in 2015. This is better than most other markets across the world.
So , each of the six big Hollywood studios – Walt Disney, Warner Brothers, Fox Star, Sony, Viacom and Paramount – is now in India on its own. While all of them want to participate in the production of local films, and there can be little doubt over that, this also shows the seriousness they accord to the distribution in India of the films they produce abroad. Paramount President Andrew Cripps had told Business Standard in May that India is where Brazil and Russia were 10 years ago. Russia has grown rapidly in the last decade to become the sixth-largest market for Paramount worldwide. Cripps expects India to become one of its top ten markets in the next four to five years.
The studios now release more prints in India than ever before. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the first in the series, came in 101 prints in April 2002. The latest, and the last, in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II, was released by Warner Brothers in July with no fewer than 600 prints.
The appetite for Hollywood has grown across the country and not just the metros. Hangover II, for instance, has also done well in cities like Indore, Kota, Bhopal, Nagpur and Ernakulam. And recently, when multiplex owners demanded a higher cut of revenue, Fox Star decided to release Rise of the Planet of the Apes in 600 single-screen theatres — a clear sign that the demand for Hollywood is robust all over India. The 1,050 or so multiplex screens in the country are concentrated in state capitals and other large cities, while the 6,000-odd single-screen theatres are spread out in the rest of the country. Many Hollywood films are released in five languages in the country, including English and Hindi. The promotion (posters, advertisements, etc) is also done in local languages. When Avatar, distributed by Fox Star Studios, debuted on television recently, it had as many as eight associate sponsors, apart from the title sponsor (Reliance 3G), on-ground partner (PVR Cinemas) and online partner (Bookmyshow.com).
There have been months when Hollywood has scored over Bollywood. In May, for example, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides grossed Rs 22 crore in the first week, better than the Rs 14.63 crore collected by Haunted 3D, the most successful Hindi film of the month.
The seriousness of the Hollywood studios can also be seen in their marketing moves which are aimed at building their brand equity in the country. Walt Disney tied up with Pepsodent during the release of Toy Story to launch a 3D comic book. It had got together with Clinic Plus for the promotion of Tangled. Fox Star Studios went with Horlicks for The Chronicles of Narnia, while Paramount allied with Tata Photon for Fast and Furious 5. The signs are simply too numerous to miss.
