Hollywood, Bollywood to Merge Into One Movie Empire?

MUMBAI, June 25, 2008 — -- Will Hollywood relocate from the hills of Los Angeles to the banks of the Ganges? Could Indian stars soon get the same treatment as Angie, Brad and the rest of our A-listers?

Quite possibly. With a potential $2 billion deal between Indian billionaire Anil Ambani's Reliance Entertainment, other Indian investors and Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks SKG, Bollywood and Hollywood are now linked by more than their names.

In recent weeks, some of Hollywood's biggest celebrities have made deals to work in Bollywood. Reliance Entertainment signed agreements with stars like George Clooney, Jim Carrey and Brad Pitt. Later this year, Johnny Depp is expected to star in Mira Nair's "Shantaram." Sylvestor Stallone agreed to appear in ''Kambakkht Ishq," and Will Smith reportedly said he wants to star in a Bollywood film.

Although the Reliance-DreamWorks deal is not the first between the two filmmaking centers, it is the largest so far and offers hope for future mega deals.

Of the two film centers, Hollywood is considered to be the corporate machine whereas Bollywood has a reputation for making less-than-transparent deals, perhaps to foster the interesting rumor of shady financing from organized crime.

Hollywood released about 630 films last year, with an average budget of $106.6 million. Bollywood creates about 800 movies a year on budgets that are a fraction of those from LaLaLand. In addition, Bollywood films, which average 140 minutes versus Hollywood's 100 minutes, are shot in 40 days — about the same time it takes for a higher-budget Hollywood film. Bollywood's $2.2 billion in revenues in 2007 (according to PricewaterhouseCoopers) is a tenth of Hollywood's.

The term "Bollywood" is a combination of Hollywood and Bombay, the former name for Mumbai where the movies are made (otherwise it may have been called Mollywood). The name is considered offensive by some because it makes it seem as if the Hindi film industry is a tiny distant relative of Hollywood, despite the fact that it churns out more films per year. Bollywood only accounts for a quarter of all Indian-made films.

Warner Bros has made inroads into the Indian film industry and is financing and distributing the biggest budget release in Bollywood this year, "Chandni Chowk to China." Details about the agreement have not been revealed.