Culture

Fox teams up with STAR to enter Bollywood

by chowdawg | September 10, 2008 at 09:35 am

580 views | 2 Recommendations | 6 comments

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Twentieth Century Fox and STAR have teamed up to create FoxSTAR Studios, which will produce and distribute Bollywood and Indian regional films. Vijay Sing, the current President of Strategy and Corporate Development of STAR India will become the new CEO. It is seen as the first step in a much more ambitious plan to gain a foothold in other markets including Greater China and South East Asia.

Twentieth Century Fox today announced it has set up a new Asian studio in an attempt to tap into the lucrative Bollywood film market. The studio is a joint venture between the film giant and the Asian satellite broadcaster Star, which are both owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

Fox Star Studios will produce Asian-language films for worldwide distribution. It will start out making Bollywood films in India, with plans to expand to China and Southeast Asia.

Twentieth Century Fox is not the first studio to try to capitalize on the success of the Indian film industry outside its home market. In 2007, Sony Pictures Entertainment produced its own Bollywood musical, Saawariya.

Second time the charm?

Unlike a previous foray into the Hindi film industry in 2003, this joint venture with Rupert Murdoch's TV biz will be a full-fledged film production company and make Hindi pics with local talent.

That earlier effort with helmer Ram Gopal Varma yielded the film "Ek hasina thi," which was dubbed the most expensive Bollywood pic but was a box office dud.

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tarik.jilali

at 10:45 on September 10th, 2008

Bollywood Hunk Superstar Salman Khan

tarik.jilali has contributed a photo to this story.

alan.millington

at 11:26 on September 10th, 2008

Imran Khan sings and dances live on stage during the 2008 Mela festival in Swindon, UK

alan.millington has contributed a photo to this story.

Sanjay Jha

at 23:04 on September 10th, 2008

Yes, Indian film industry is growing very fast and good thing is that there is no regulatory cap for foreign companies. So Mr. Murdoch in his visit has finalized some deals. His Star network is already on number one spot in India.

SOLARLIFE

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 23:12 on September 10th, 2008

chowdawg, I like this story. It's good stuff. I have most of the classic Shanrukh Khan videos. Some quality scenes are made in tha Austrian Alps

kalsang35

at 01:34 on September 14th, 2008

This photo was taken in Mackay Queensland, Australia at the Global Grooves Day. The dancer gave a demonstration of Bollywood dancing and then invited the audience to join in, it looked just like a bollywood movie with 50 people dancing and having a lot of fun.

kalsang35 has contributed a photo to this story.