Slumdog Millionaire, Bollywood billionaires?

Eight Oscars open this Rs 11,000-crore industry to larger global audiences.

Bollywood’s big boys expect the success of Slumdog Millionaire, which won eight Oscars at the Academy Awards ceremony today, to give film production houses a big opportunity to carve a niche market for films with Indian actors, stories, music and style that appeal to a larger audience in the US, instead of just the Indian diaspora.

Films with Indian actors, story and director, like Namesake, Monsoon Wedding and Bend it Like Beckham, were cross-over movies that won critical acclaim but did not make a dent with larger US audiences. That has changed overnight with Slumdog’s Oscar sweep. “Slumdog is a Bollywood movie told in typical Bollywood style, with Indian actors and shot in India, which has appealed to an audience that goes beyond the Indian diaspora,” said Rajesh Sawhney, president of Reliance Entertainment, which recently announced a multi-million dollar collaboration deal with maverick director Steven Spielberg. “Until now, Bollywood movies only addressed Indians in the US. We hope this is not a one-off and there are more films that follow this experimentation,” he added.

His company, for instance, is producing Kites, which has a Mexican heroine, Barbara Mori, and Indian star Hrithik Roshan and is shot in Los Angeles with an international audience in mind.

Sawhney said the Chinese have already made a dent in the US mass market with films like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, which won an Oscar for the Best Foreign Language Film in 2000 and also became a box office success in the US in its own right.

Other producers said the success of the movie will not change Bollywood. But it will make producers in Hollywood realise that a new opportunity has emerged. “Bollywood movies are meant for Indian audiences. Slumdog was made for western audiences. But its success shows that there is an opportunity for Hollywood to take up Indian themes, cast and technicians and make a movie that is of world standard and which works,” said film producer Bobby Bedi.

Many entertainment companies expect that the big movie studios like Sony (which made Saawariya), Fox Entertainment and Warner Brothers (which made Chandni Chowk to China) that have been cautious in investing in Bollywood films might just change their mind after Slumdog.

“India and China are the two emerging markets with a large audience base and their markets are stagnating. China has rules that don’t allow Hollywood studios easy entry. So this might be an opportunity for the studios to put in more money in India,” said Sawhney.

There are, of course, immediate beneficiaries from the movie’s success — the technicians, and musicians like A R Rahman from India who have now entered the global centrestage. “The Oscar for the original music score puts India on the music map of the world. Earlier, the West identified Indian music with Ravi Shankar. It’s a good thing the award has gone to music that is popular. It will give recognition to musicians here,” said Ehsaan Noorani (of the music director trio Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy).

Industry experts reckon that Rahman’s price (he is the most expensive and charges around Rs 5 crore) would go up at least 50 per cent, if not more, after he has bagged the Oscar for the best original score.

Freida Pinto, the girl-next-door in Slumdog, has become an instant Hollywood celebrity and is commanding big bucks already. Her endorsement fees have shot up from a mere Rs 20 lakh before the movies to Rs 1.3 crore.

“Freida has received a very big Hollywood offer that is likely to be announced soon and will dramatically increase her endorsement fees,” said Anirban Das Blah, chief executive of Globosports, a celebrity management firm handling her endorsement contracts.