India Culture, Business, Sports and Food. Get all the buzz in India now

Financial Problems The latest rumors that have emerged from the Indian entertainment industry indicate that international financial melt down has started to show its impacts on Bollywood. The time limit of many film projects has been increased. In December we have seen that release date of many films had been canceled or had been postponed and it was said that these steps have been taken in wake of the Mumbai attack. It was said that mood of the public was not good at that time as India was recovering from one of the worst terror attack. But it was not the real issue. The reality is that Indian corporate world that is also involved in the film production has been severely hit by the financial melt-down. And it has directly affected the under-production projects.

Deal A news has emerged, though there is no official confirmation, that Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan’s home banner A B Corp and Anil Ambani’s Reliance Entertainment have canceled their Rs. 1500-crore joint venture. Both these companies had entered into the deal in June last year and were to make films, reality shows, TV serials and internet and mobile content jointly. Both the companies were the equal partners in the deal. Reliance Entertainment was to handle the managerial, marketing and distribution work of the projects while Bachchan family had agreed to provide all kind of creative inputs.

Impact It is being said that ‘Reliance has been going through a major up and down for some time now’. Those filmmakers who are making films jointly with Reliance have been asked to cut the costs. Many projects that were yet to be started have been reworked on their budget. It has directly affected Vashu Bhagnani’s ‘Do Knot Disturb’, ‘Kal Kissne Dekha’, Ravi Chopra’s ‘Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai’ and many others under-production films. It is being said that Reliance has decided to reconsider these films. It is being said that amid the air of uncertainty AB Corps have joined hands with Studio 18 to complete some under-production projects.

Reasons According to some unofficial reports lack of communication between AB Corps and Reliance Entertainment is the reason behind the ‘fall out’. According to ToI, ‘The deal between AB Corp and Reliance has fallen through as Reliance was taking its own time and there was no clarity from their side as to when they wanted to start the film.’ But it will be too premature to say that the deal between both the partners has been called of because of ‘lack of clarity’ on part of Reliance. Any one who has a ‘sound mind‘ can reach the conclusion that it is the financial problems that have forced Reliance to back tract. Reliance Entertainment has not commented officially on this report and at the same time Big B, too, has not issued any statement regarding this matter. Even an official of TV 18 declined to comment on this issue. All this ‘talk’ indicates that everything is not well between the Ambanis and Bachchans.

Agreement According to the agreement Bachchans were to work with four directors selected by Reliance Entertainment. These directors were Rohan Sippy, Sujoy Ghosh, Chandraprakash Dwivedi and Balki. It was decided that Abhishek Bachchan will work with Sippy while Amitabh was to work in Ghosh and Diwedi’s films. Abhishek and Amitabh both were to feature in R. Balakrishanan’s fims. With this development, it has become evident that in the coming months Indians will not be able to see big budgeted films as most of such projects have suffered because of financial problems. At the other end it is a good sign for the small scale films and regional film industries.