Saturday, December 1, 2007
Eros profit rises 75% on Om Shanti Om
LONDON: With ‘Om Shanti Om’ grossing £1.5 million now to enter the UK Top 10 and its distributor, the London Stock Exchange-listed Eros International reporting a 75% jump in its half-year profits, bullishness and Bollywood suddenly appear synonymous.
Eros COO Jyoti Deshpande told TOI on Wednesday that Bollywood’s international appeal and scope in 2007 could be compared to "the way Hollywood was in the 1930s and the Chinese industry in 1970." Poised for massive exponential growth. All this, she stressed, off the back of an upward curve from a film - ‘Om Shanti Om’ "that is definitely not crossover".
So why the palpable sense of excitement in the English-speaking world, Hollywood’s traditional heartland and this sudden panic that Bollywood may be stealing a march on Hollywood?
Answers Deshpande, Bollywood’s time may have come. "In every non-English speaking market, our films have already crossed over. The Germans are watching them, so are the Russians, the Indonesians, the Dutch, the Arabs. From January to November, 5% of the world’s Top 10 films have been our releases."
She adds that ‘Om Shanti Om’ was the number one release worldwide, sans the US charts, trumping the Tom Cruise-starrer ‘Lions and Lambs’. "The day is not far off," she says, "When Bollywood films too will be grossing $ 100 million."
But ‘Om Shanti Om’, she says, is not the start of a new phenomenon of Bollywood bounce, just an expression of it.
Bollywood’s forward strategy appears to be almost like a covert military operation. Eros, which broke new ground by listing on the London Stock Exchange in July 2006, says it is now looking to mimic Hollywood’s new mantra "collaborate, rather than compete" and wants to bring commercial mainstream cinema made in English from India into the English-speaking world.
Reporting positive figures and a sunshine outlook to London’s financial district, Eros says it remained "firmly focussed on its content and distribution consolidation strategy leveraging its leadership position to be at the forefront of the consolidation of the fragmented but rapidly growing $10 billion Indian entertainment industry which is forecast to grow to over $25 billion by 2011 according to Price Waterhouse Coopers."
Pointing to the international success of ‘Bride and Prejudice’, ‘Monsoon Wedding’ and ‘The Namesake’ over the last two years, Eros CEO Kishore Lulla says Bollywood’s onward strategy must now be to bring commercial, rather than arthouse films to the international marketplace.
Rashmee Roshan Lall, TNN
Eros COO Jyoti Deshpande told TOI on Wednesday that Bollywood’s international appeal and scope in 2007 could be compared to "the way Hollywood was in the 1930s and the Chinese industry in 1970." Poised for massive exponential growth. All this, she stressed, off the back of an upward curve from a film - ‘Om Shanti Om’ "that is definitely not crossover".
So why the palpable sense of excitement in the English-speaking world, Hollywood’s traditional heartland and this sudden panic that Bollywood may be stealing a march on Hollywood?
Answers Deshpande, Bollywood’s time may have come. "In every non-English speaking market, our films have already crossed over. The Germans are watching them, so are the Russians, the Indonesians, the Dutch, the Arabs. From January to November, 5% of the world’s Top 10 films have been our releases."
She adds that ‘Om Shanti Om’ was the number one release worldwide, sans the US charts, trumping the Tom Cruise-starrer ‘Lions and Lambs’. "The day is not far off," she says, "When Bollywood films too will be grossing $ 100 million."
But ‘Om Shanti Om’, she says, is not the start of a new phenomenon of Bollywood bounce, just an expression of it.
Bollywood’s forward strategy appears to be almost like a covert military operation. Eros, which broke new ground by listing on the London Stock Exchange in July 2006, says it is now looking to mimic Hollywood’s new mantra "collaborate, rather than compete" and wants to bring commercial mainstream cinema made in English from India into the English-speaking world.
Reporting positive figures and a sunshine outlook to London’s financial district, Eros says it remained "firmly focussed on its content and distribution consolidation strategy leveraging its leadership position to be at the forefront of the consolidation of the fragmented but rapidly growing $10 billion Indian entertainment industry which is forecast to grow to over $25 billion by 2011 according to Price Waterhouse Coopers."
Pointing to the international success of ‘Bride and Prejudice’, ‘Monsoon Wedding’ and ‘The Namesake’ over the last two years, Eros CEO Kishore Lulla says Bollywood’s onward strategy must now be to bring commercial, rather than arthouse films to the international marketplace.
Rashmee Roshan Lall, TNN
Labels: Eros International, Farah Khan, Om Shanti Om, Shahrukh Khan
Posted By Ivan Me ... at 7:23 PM
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