Bollywood Balle Balle

Imagine this. Early Morning, am tuned in to NPR while trying to concentrate on the road instead of dozing off and what hits me but the song "Saawariya....blah, blah, blah". I was not particulalry fond of the movie or the song but it being on NPR at 7:15 in the morning, robbed sleep off my eyes

NPR discusses Hollywood forays into Mumbai, and says,

"And though Hollywood likes to think of itself as the world's biggest movie town, those billion-plus movie-mad Indians are served by a home-grown movie industry — the entertainment machine some refer to as Bollywood — that annually puts out more than twice as many movies as its U.S. competition. Hollywood, no surprise, is hungry for a piece of that market."

To make a place in the Indian market for themselves Hollywood is now trying to produce Hindi Movies. Ok they first tried to woo Indian audience by dubbing SpiderMan 3 in Bhojpuri but the Makad Manav didn't really charm the Indian audience it seems, so they thought ok let us just produce the next WXYZ by Karan Johar. Karan Johar was not in town or whatever and they got hold of Sanjay Bhansali.

"That's why Sony became the first major Hollywood studio to produce a Hindi-language film."

The film was "Sawariya" which failed miserably but,

"Sony executives say they plan on making more movies in Mumbai. There's even a sense that one of these days, movies from India may become as much of a force in the world as Hollywood pictures. " Amen to that

And now Disney is making an animation feature Roadside Romeo for the Indian Market.

And why is this on my food blog, because,

""Culturally, India is much more connected with our own movies and our own stars, much like our food," says Uday Singh, managing director of Sony Pictures in India

NPR Story here