Apna sapna China ka paisa, writes Sarita Tanwar
Indian actors " Irrfan Khan, Anil Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and Deepika Padukone " are being cast in films and TV shows abroad. English films are being released in India before its worldwide release. And it's not because India has a wealth of talent.
It is actually a genius strategy by Hollywood bosses. They know our population is equivalent to 17.86 per cent of the total world population. We are a country of 1.34 billion people and that's a huge market. They see India as an enormous opportunity.
But you know who has more people than we do? China! So shouldn't we be wooing China like the West is wooing us? Let's do that Love Thy Neighbour thing.
One more time, let's just copy what the folks in LA do. Every summer, Hollywood attempts to place summer blockbusters on lucrative Chinese movie screens. They have been trying to break into the Chinese market, tailoring films to their tastes, basing part of their films in China (Transformers 4, Iron Man 3, xXx: Return of Xander Cage) and casting Chinese actors in ensemble casts. The latest Vin Diesel-starrer was even financed by Chinese investors.
Quick fact: In 2012, China surpassed Japan as the world's second-largest movie market, and Hollywood studios are desperate to get a bigger slice of the pie.
Bollywood celebrates Rs 100/200/300 crore collections, but Jackie Chan's Kung Fu Yoga minted Rs 1,200 crore world-wide collections! A large chunk of that collection came from China. Now, I am no business school graduate, but if I was a producer, I would cast an A-lister from Chollywood (a more unfortunate name than Bollywood) in a Hindi movie, then dub it and release it on the other side of the border (hopefully they won't ban our films like Pakistan). Even if the actor took home Rs 50 crore fee, look at the profit I would make. Just imagine, Sonu Sood can boast about having a film to his name that made four times as much as India's all-time top grosser.
I know Raees taught us baniye ka dimaag aur miyan bhai ka daring. But let's not underestimate miyan bhai ka dimaag. Because two Khans " Kabir and Salman " hit upon this plan before me. The heroine of their next film Tubelight " Zhu Zhu " is from China. The worldwide collections of this Salman film might just break the records set by Dangal if dubbed and released in the neighbouring country, which, I suspect might have been the plan all along. They have taken the first step in activating Hindi-Chini, bhai-bhai rishta, we need to take it a lot further. With most studios in dire straits, the Hindi film industry needs a plan and major moolah.
According to Malcom Moore of The Guardian, "The world has a new movie mogul, and the Samuel Goldwyn of our age is Chinese. His name is Wang Jianlin and he has more money than Rupert Murdoch."
The former armyman, had a party recently and Leonardo Di-Caprio, Catherine Zeta Jones and Nicole Kidman were just some of the faces spotted there. He is already so powerful that executives from all the major Hollywood talent agencies and top studios also flew out.
Wang paid 10 million to attract an A-list roster of stars to the Chinese city, Qingdao, flying them in a private jet. He is the largest cinema magnate in the world, with 6,000 screens across Asia and the United States. We are culturally and geographically (not that it matters) closer to China, I think it's time for chai pe charcha, no?
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