Rest A While, Hollywood; Bollywood’s Gyrating Here!

If you need a rather prolific indicator of Bollywood’s success on Hollywood-dominated land, just look at the golden shores of the US. Dhoom 3, the sequel of the earlier films with the same name, has reasons to rejoice its success. The film may be scoffed at for the content and for packing way too much masala, but it is still celebrating a roaring success offshore.

The film set the North American box office record for a non-English and a Bollywood film, taking in $3.3 million from 236 theatres. The movie, which has been shot on large-screen format, also benefited from IMAX surcharge and went on to wear the crown of being the first Bollywood flick to grab such a huge number of screens across the US.

In fact, Dhoom 3 broke the record set by Chennai Express, which had grossed $2.2 million across the American theatres. Earlier this year, another Bollywood film Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani managed to break into the US top 10, showing in 162 theatres across the country.

Such feats by Bollywood films, with the industry celebrating 100 years of its existence, continue to create records in a non-Hindi-speaking territory.

Almost all the top-line actors/celebrities of Indian cinema have tried to make foray into Hollywood and enjoy a great rapport with the Red Carpet events abroad. Big names like Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Shilpa Shetty, Deepika Padukone, Shah Rukh Khan, Madhuri Dixit and Sridevi have a sizeable fan base in the US and it is not surprising that next year’s International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) event is going to be held in Tampa Bay, Florida.

While IIFA is a global platform which celebrates and presents the Indian cinema beyond its geographical boundaries, the fact that it is going to be held in the US is highly significant. It signals the ‘arrival’ of Indian cinema to the land of high-quality cinema. According to IIFA and Wizcraft director Andre Timms, the decision to hold the IIFA event in Florida during April 24-26, 2014, was taken following the ‘unprecedented demand’ for the event to be held in the US. “Florida was chosen, following the need for the largest stage to host various larger-than-life sub-events as part of the main event,” Timms had reportedly said.

Slowly but surely, Hollywood seems to be realising that Bollywood is something more than Slumdog Millionaire or the usual song-and-dance routines, although they continue to be the strength and the USP of Bollywood productions.

It’s the stuff that can make fairy tales look rather insipid. When the then Miss New York Nina Davaluri danced to popular Bollywood song ‘Dhoom Taana’ from the film Om Shanti Om for her talent show round, experts had probably underestimated the reach of Bollywood and wondered if this choice could affect her chances of winning the coveted crown. In fact, no one had placed bets on her victory. It is now history that she won the Miss America crown.

And what a victory it was!

In retrospect, a Bollywood song on the Hollywood-adoring land found its share of takers. It wasn't the divider; in fact, it must have been the unifying agent. The thickly Hindi-flavoured Bollywood had crossed the shores and reached the global audience, much like Butter Chicken Masala and the spicy Indian curry.

Is it, therefore, surprising that the world looks at Bollywood as India’s biggest export? It is the largest film industry in the world and the biggest employment churner in India. Bollywood and its local counterparts within the country produce more than 1,000 films annually across 20 languages, predominantly for a film-watching population of half a billion who are well under 25 years of age.

What more can you say about a film industry that has existed for over 100 years, and has produced numerous stars and superb cinematic moments for the fans to cherish? Hollywood was not even in the concept stage when the theatre-inspired Bollywood was experimenting with entertaining people in many languages.

Bollywood came into existence in 1899 with the production of a short film and Hollywood took its first gasp of breath a good 11 years later in 1910. Now, crunch some numbers. While Hollywood produces 500 films per year, Bollywood does more than 1,000 films even during a lean year. Hollywood movies are watched by more than 2.6 billion people worldwide with English being the language of communication. But Bollywood, even with its severe language limitation (the medium is Hindi, a language spoken by the majority in India), enjoys a viewer base of 3 billion.

After Indians started to migrate in the early 80s, the late 90s saw a spate of movies with the NRI life as their key theme. And the old plots were resurrected, with flavours to suit those who had left home to earn more of the foreign soil like seen in ‘DDLJ’. Needless to say, these movies packed lots of emotions – that of being away from homeland, the feeling of alienation and the search for identity. Bollywood had matured with time.

Hollywood continues its triumph in many areas but what Bollywood has made possible is quite another thing. A multilanguage-based film industry, sniggered at for being the song-and-dance trade, managed to turn that very aspect into its strength.

But you have to consider another thing as well. Although Pakistan and India don’t see eye to eye in many areas, Bollywood gets the singers from Pakistan to sing some quintessential numbers. And many of those songs have become super hits in both countries. Movies build the bridge between the two nations, if nothing else.

But Pakistan is not the only country where you will find Bollywood fans. Bollywood finds its audiences in West Africa, Dubai, Prague, the US and the UK. And not all of them are Hindi-speaking people. There are Berliners who have learnt Hindi to be able to follow those films; there are Russians who have watched Bollywood’s dream merchant Raj Kapoor’s classics and shed tears when he passed away and there are the Japanese and the Chinese, too.

Interestingly, Bollywood and Hollywood had signed a pact back in 2010 in order to leverage their industry experience and diversity, and use the same for the benefit of global audiences. Termed as the ‘historic co-operation pact,’ it will also see two of the world’s biggest movie industries come together for content protection and distribution.

Now, in a situation where Bollywood and Hollywood have come together, the world will sure be one big cinema hall! And entertainment? Unlimited, of course. Treat yourself!