Is the writer trying to suggest that there are 20 million Indian diasporic people in the UK and US? Interesting to know where he got his figure from. Also Monsoon Wedding and Bend It Like Beckham are not Indian movies.
Please get the figures right. An average hollywood flick will have an estimated budget of $50 million to $75 million. Yet to be released Terminator-3 is considered to be most expensive movie and is budgeted around $170/$180 million. The two highly anticipated matrix sequels are rumoured to have cost around $300 millions, which is a mind boggling amount. Considering these statistics how can an average hollywood movie takes around $200 million to make? But budget should never be a constraint for making a good movie which is rightly proved by "My big fat greek wedding", which was made on shoe string budget of $4 million and went on to gross more than $200 million in North America alone.
The article is refreshing. But do you think that only selling the"product"has to be looked into and no substantial changes have to be made in the contents for going global?
Yes indeed it can! The way forward has been incisively analysed in the article.
For that matter we need to think about how to market traditional Indian garments, Indian food (now maybe it is the turn of sweets) and Indian music. A lot of soul-searching may be required though.
Its not only globalisation of entertainig Bolloywood but there is huge canvas avaiable for indian history,medicines, naturopathy and food culture. infact infotainment will be an apt word to express, being an professional from the media i am intereseted to have more details about the ways and means of exploring the foregion shores through cable and satellite network. can the writer of the article communicate with the more information or can server provide his email ID. regards, VIKAS.
Not to sound harsh, but really, I expected better from IIM student editors.
First, the writer makes no attempt at defining what 'Bollywood','Hollywood' and indeed, British, movies are. The problems in defining thus can be dealt in two ways:- a) Funding: Is a Universal-produced Hindi movie 'Bollywood'? b) Suppose a Hollywood director comes to, say, Ramoji Film City and using local talent, crew, actors etc, makes a brilliant movie on life in midwest America. Would that be Bollywood?
The point I'm trying to make is on the necessary focus; should movie directors be interested in money or promoting (packaged) Indian culture? This, of course, raises the question of whether there's a uniform Indian culture, in the first place, and if it exists, whether it can be packaged.
Problems with a uniform Indian culture are more apparent that they seem. Are Tamil/Telugu/Malayalam/Kannada movies 'Bollywood' stuff? The accounts of these industries are, arguably, more organised with funding coming from, to use his expression, more savoury sources. But the global appeal of non-Hindi Indian movies cannot be discounted; Rajnikant, for instance, is popular in Japan.
Which brings us to the next point, poor research. It's wrong to say that Indian film is predominantly aimed at diasporic audiences and that too only in the US and UK. Let's begin with our neighbours first; I probably don't have to say that Indian movies are extremely popular in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Afghanistan and Nepal. Malaysia has always been in Bollywood's sway, with a daily dose of at least two Hindi movies on Malaysian state television. A couple of years ago, a Chinese friend of mine brought a bootlegged Hindi VCD from his hometown, saying it's very popular out there. South Africa and much of Saharan, and East Africa can't live without Hindi movies. Neither can Switzerland (in particular, the Swiss love videos of Hindi film songs; apparently, Bollywood directors make Switzerland look beautiful), nor can Russia, which has a popular film monthly on Bollywood published in, hold your breath, Russian. So yes, while Bollywood hasn't exactly stormed audiences in South America or the cross-over (read white/black) audiences in US/UK, it has seen spectacular success elsewhere.
Which brings us to the final point about Bollywood's global spread; it's not a new phenomenon. You see, Mister 420, despite being inspired by Charlie Chaplin, was a superhit in the then USSR in the `50's itself.
All in all, the article raises an old question, answers it poorly and supplies incomplete information. Again, I neither want to sound haughty, nor lambast a fellow student's effort, but it's important to remember the value of proper research.
