What happens when Hollywood is trying to break into two of the biggest markets in the world and is finding it difficult?
{FILM SPOTTING}
As usual I’ve got too many things saved with the intention to write about them later and a lot of these seem to be ideas for “film spotting” posts. I figured these shouldn’t be that difficult to clear up, so you can probably expect a lot of “film spotting” in the coming days :) (unless of course I make no progress with clearing up my post ideas, which is also a possibility ;-P)
So anyway, here’s the first of the lot *grin*
India and China are very important to Hollywood. Hollywood may be getting more of their money out of Europe & Japan at the moment, but with India and China having over a billion people each and being the two fastest developing economies in the world it’s easy to see why they should focus some of their efforts there. But there are big obstacles in both countries…
In China there are various legal problems - the biggest one being the quota the government imposes. Only 20 foreign films a year are allowed in China. Another issue is that apparently there are more than 300 cities in China with populations of over 1mln people which do not have a single cinema screen!
In India market access is good and cinema culture is strong, but people in India just don’t seem to want to watch Hollywood movies… Or at least not enough of them for Hollywood to get significant returns there.
Which is why Warner Bros’ January release looks insane *grin*
Chandni Chowk to China (USA/India/China, 2009)
Polish Distributor: I imagine the Polish branch of Warner Bros will release it eventually… or I hope anyway… In civilized countries it releases January 2009.
Director: Nikhil Advani
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Deepika Padukone, Mithun Chakraborty
Production House: Warner Bros, Orion Pictures
Plot: (from imdb)
An action-comedy about a simple cook from Chandni Chowk mistaken for the reincarnation of an ancient peasant warrior Liu Shengh by residents of an oppressed Chinese village.
Trailer
Why it might be worth seeing
Does the reason why I’m extremely excited about this crazy creation require any further comment? ;)
Just the Chinese martial arts thing mixed into Bollywood dancing puts me into a state of advanced giggles. And there’s good people behind this too - Nikhil Advani is the guy who directed Kal Ho Naa Ho, Akshay Kumar is pretty much the most successful Bollywood actor at the box office at the moment and Deepika Padukone after her Om Shanti Om debut is one of the most exciting and beautiful upcoming stars in India. And in Indian standards they have a huge budget to work with, so what else could one want from a commercial movie? *grin*
