Ambani Jr, Brad Pitt join hands for sci-fi film

ADAG will provide help in production and distribution in India.

Reliance Big Entertainment, Anil Ambani’s entertainment arm, and Plan B, Hollywood megastar Brad Pitt’s production company, will together make a sci-fi and action film called Dark Void.

Dark Void is a game owned by Capcom, a developer and publisher of video games. It will release Dark Void for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s Playstation across North America and Europe in January 2010. Subsequently, Reliance Big Entertainment and Plan B will make a film on the same theme.

Dark Void is a combat game centred around Will, a pilot who crash-lands in the Bermuda Triangle after a routine mission and finds himself inside ‘The Void’, an alternate world that resembles primitive earth where aliens with superior technology plan to take over civilisation. According to Capcom Senior Vice-president (licensing) Germaine Gioia, Dark Void was developed as a game keeping a wide screen in mind with a world full of adventure in cinematic scope and scale.

Reliance Big Entertainment had announced its business relationship with Plan B at the Cannes Film Festival last year. Dark Void is the first collaboration between the two partners. "We are delighted that our creative partnership with Plan B has led to this agreement to develop Dark Void along with Capcom. We also look forward to future projects from it," said Reliance Big Entertainment Chairman Amit Khanna in a statement.

Last year, the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group had signed separate deals with seven Hollywood production houses run by top actors like George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Tom Hanks. In July, the group formalised its association with DreamWorks Studios promoted by Hollywood director Steven Spielberg and his partner Stacey Snider. As part of the deal, the two partners will have 50 per cent each in DreamWorks. It will make movies with an initial funding of $825 million (around Rs 4,100 crore) which is around one-third of Bollywood’s annual turnover.

Under the deal, DreamWorks will make five to six films a year for global audiences, with the first production to begin this year. Spielberg and Snider said the company is already working on films like Tintin and is also talking to Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood for a movie. For the Hollywood studios, Reliance ADAG will provide assistance in production as well as distribution and exhibition in India.