Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks and Twentieth Century Fox are the latest Hollywood studios to jump onto the Bollywood bandwagon. They follow Sony (Saawariya), Warner Bros (Saas Bahu aur Sensex) and Disney (Roadside Romeo) who have already made forays into Bollywood.

Spielberg will receive almost £300 million in funding from Indian billionaire Anil Ambani, who has already established links with Hollywood through tie-ups with George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Ambani, one of the world’s richest men, is married to former Bollywood actress Tina Munim and not to Amitabh Bachchan as a leading UK tabloid newspaper reported recently.

Ambani’s rupees will be used to recreate DreamWorks as a private entity separating it from Paramount which bought it in 2006. This will give Spielberg the creative freedom to make the type of films he craves. Will there be a Bollywood version of Jurassic Park with singing T-Rex’s?

Last Friday, Twentieth Century Fox tied up with Star TV, India’s biggest satellite network to create Fox Star Studios. Its mandate is to produce and distribute better quality Bollywood and Hollywood films. Towards this end, Fox Star announced a deal with leading producer-director Vipul Shah, the man responsible for such ‘classics’ as Namastey London and Singh is Kinng. Vijay Singh, CEO of Fox Star told me at the London launch: “There isn’t a corner in the world where we do not have access so as a studio we will give Bollywood greater exposure.”

Vipul Shah, currently in the UK filming his latest romcom London Dreams with badboy Salman Khan is excited about the Holly-Bolly love-in. “In India, we generally remake Hollywood films, now we are going to do it officially. We have the best of Hollywood to help us make our cinema better and take it to a wider global market.”

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