Bollywood Star Dust

The Indian entertainment sector was named as Bollywood due to the combination of Goddess Mumbadevi and former Bombay. The word for Indian cinema was coined as Bollywood keeping in mind the world’s biggest entertainment Hollywood. During last decade many new words were coined those are pertaining to entertainment. India has hosts of languages. There are many regional languages such as: Marathi, Telgu, Tamil, Odia, Kannad and Bhojpuri etc. Though the Hindi movies have been proved to be predominant, yet the people have not left their love to their local language in the lurch. After the word Bollywood was coined, the new words in different languages in entertainment segment came to light. The words are Kollywood Tollywood, and Ollywood etc.

The success of Bollywood movies obviously denotes the success of Indian economy. Since, before a decade the Indian films were low at its budget. These movies were only shot in Indian rural areas and cities. Whereas, the movies in these days are being shot in the major cities of the world. The people have flair to watch the movie. The Indian TV channels have mushroomed during last ten years which is a clear indication of the improvement to the Indian economy. As economy started growing, the Bollywood found its heyday.

The Indian movies started with high budgets. At the same time the business at the box office touched its apex. That gave inspiration to the Bollywood producers, directors, actors and actress etc. Previously we had experience of Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmedra, Jitendra and Mithun Chakravarty etc. The Indian film heroin were also very few. The women from Indian culture were reluctant to enter into semi-nude acting in Bollywood. However, the time spoke and people left their conservatism. Youngsters became open minded and they started entering in to the Bollywood.

There was a scarcity for the heroines in Bollywood Movies before fifteen years. However, the unavailability of heroin in Hindi film is not a distant dream. Sridevi, Tina muni, Jayprada, Rekha, Hema Malini were the few names in Indian Bollywood. But, the Bollywood heroines are aplenty in the present scenario of Hindi cinema. Kareena Kapoor, Zarine, Katrina, Aishwria Rai and Ayesha Takia are the popular names those who are hyperactive to promote Indian entertainment. Basically, the actors of the current trends are having flexibility to act any role in the movie. The Indian actors are in these days highly versatile. They can perform any role starting from comedy, thriller, romance to pathetic etc.

Surprisingly, the year 2009 and the beginning of the year 2010 were extremely successful in doing business in Bollywood. The highly successful movies are slumdog millionaire, Kambakkht Ishq, Love Aaj Kal, Paa, Wanted, Ajab Prem Ki Gazab Kahani etc. Currently the movie 3idiots is a huge hit in the history of Indian entertainment. It has a gross business of more than 300 crores. It is believed that the year ahead for the business of the Indian media and entertainment will remain intact as economy of India is developing by leaps and bounds. So to speak, the Bollywood is going to go places in the near future.

Initially, it was the multi-starrer thingy and item numbers which created spark and acted like an X factor for a film to do well at the box office, but things are gradually changing year after year. Nowadays it’s the westernization facet which is doing the trick for bollywood. Recently movies like Kambakkht Ishq, Love Aaj Kal and Blue brought this élan into the film industry.

Hollywood celebs are making their way into the Bollywood film industry. Be it supermodels or reputed pop singers or classic actors of main stream cinema, you name it and we have it. Critics may criticize Bollywood against Hollywood when they compare the two with chagrining facts like, Bollywood made a revenue of $1.75 Billion in 2006 which is only half the revenue of what one Hollywood studio, Walt Disney made in 2006. But there is verity in the sentence that, Hollywood is fascinated by Bollywood. Bollywood has a lot to offer to Hollywood and likewise Bollywood can take notes from Hollywood.

Which is better? The debate can go on and on. One might say that there is no debate as Hollywood is way ahead than Bollywood. For example, the hard sell surrounding Bollywood’s increasing influence in the world film industry, it is a long way from being a threat to Hollywood’s influence. Revenue-wise Hollywood movies does not depend on ticket sales alone. It follows the time-tested ‘franchise-formula’ where a main part of the revenue or profit comes from other segments like TV networks, magazines, home-videos etc. Of course, Bollywood is eyeing the same line but it is too early to say if a successful process is in place. But just the profits and loses, the mechanical process and the technologies ain’t the only thing that one should take into consideration because there is a lot of aspects to look into.

The major difference between Hollywood and Bollywood commercial movies is that Indian films possess a must feature of periodic song-and-dance routines of 5 to 10 minutes each, in a good movie. Top 100 disco songs is most selling album in Indian history. Songs are recorded by professional play-back singers and lip synched by movie characters normally actors and actresses. Whereas in Hollywood such things don’t exist, hence they are fascinated towards Bollywood. Bolywood films have anything and everything just like a Santa Claus gift bag and Hollywood aims more at the cinematic experience.

But as the things are coming down nowadays, would we see Bollywood and Hollywood merge? Especially after the feat which Slumdog Millionaire achieved, are we in for seeing more movies wherein Bollywood coalesce with Hollywood? In the near future Barbara Mori will be seen pairing with Hrithik Roshan for the film Kites and we will see Anupam Kher feature in Hollywood’s ace director Woody Allen’s untitled project. After Slumdog Millionaire, the gap between Bollywood and Hollywood has shortened and it is becoming a mutual thingy. If this is for things to come, then very soon we might see Sylvester Stallone going around the trees with Mallika Sherawat and Hrithik Roshan playing James Bond.