One advantage Elxsi had was access to the Tata-built EKA, the world's fourth fastest supercomputer. If you see a Hollywood blockbuster there is a good chance a chunk of its computer-generated imagery was made in India. But the romantic Bergman-esque film, based on Dostoevsky's White Nights, was trounced at the box office by a star-studded musical extravaganza Om Shanti Om.ĭisney's decision to hire an Indian animation firm, Elxsi, part of the giant Tata group, for Roadside Romeo was an acknowledgement of an unsung part of India's outsourcing success story. Last year Sony Pictures became the first major US studio to produce a Hindi-language movie: Saawariya, or Beloved. People instinctively know here what doesn't feel Indian and they reject it pretty quickly."įailure to adjust to Indian tastes can be disastrous. "Movies are part of the cultural fabric of India.
So did Disney," said Vanita Kohli-Khandekar, a media consultant. Once they produced locally they struck it big. "Indian television is where US companies found out they could not just dub blockbusters into local languages. The actor Will Smith has a two-movie deal with Mumbai-based UTV, while the Indian billionaire Anil Ambani has invested $300m in Steven Spielberg's new DreamWorks film studio.īut to make it big in Bollywood requires more than just importing foreign talent, scripts and actors. Earlier this month Rupert Murdoch's News Corp struck a multi-movie deal with a top Bollywood producer. Which means we are talking about a $7bn box office."ĭisney's new film is part of a trend that has seen tinseltown and India's "place of illusions" grow ever closer.
expected to go up to 80 rupees in five years. Mahesh Samat, Disney's managing director in India, said: "India annually sees 3.6bn movie admissions. strong in building creative properties".Īnd with a slump in cinema takings expected in the west there is a rush to tap into the Bollywood box office. In a tacit admission that a talking mouse could not be repackaged for Indian audiences, Roadside Romeo features Bollywood songs and dance numbers and the voices of its leading couple, Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor.ĭisney said it wanted to build a "brand that touches Indian families everyday, reach and relevance.
Being made in India meant the budget, thought to be $7m (£4m), was 15 times less than the average cost of Disney's Pixar movies such as Ratatouille.
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