Pitt, (Below) Hanks

Cannes, May 18: Another day and another billion announcement from Anil Ambani whose Reliance Big Entertainment today announced in Cannes that it will provide “development funds to eight leading creative forces in Hollywood”.

The value of the 30 films being developed jointly will be a billion dollars, “but this will not be the billion dollars that we talked about the other day,”said Amit Khanna, who is chairman of Reliance Big Entertainment and has been acting as the entity’s chief spokesman in Cannes.

“What it means for the average Indian is a sense of pride that India has finally arrived on the global media map,” Khanna explained to The Telegraph after his main press conference.

Khanna last week announced Reliance was investing a billion dollars in 69 movies, whose number would go up in the next few months.

Separate from this, Reliance Big Entertainment has made agreements with eight companies headed by some of the biggest names in Hollywood.

They are: Nicolas Cage’s Saturn Productions; Jim Carrey’s JC 23 Entertainment, George Clooney’s Smokehouse Productions; Chris Columbus’s 1492 Pictures; Tom Hanks’s Playtone Productions; Brand Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment; and Jay Roach’s Everyman Pictures. The last was not identified.

In a statement, Khanna said: “Reliance Entertainment has a dominant position in India but, when it comes to motion pictures, it has been obvious that we need to extend our footprint to Hollywood. We are pleased to have devised this unique method of investing, whereby Reliance Big Picture can help advance thegoals of several of the most important creators in the global industry.”

The joint Hollywood-India movies would not necessarily mean the storylines will become Indian or that Bond girls will henceforth wear saris or that Bond himself will become a desi. In time the plots may evolve to become more Indian but that is not Reliance’s immediate ambition.

The movies will be distributed by Reliance in India and perhaps in some ot her countries, too. Reliance is going into other aspects of the business and announced it has already bought overseas multiplexes or theatres – “220 screens in America, 51 in Malaysia, 7 in Mauritius and one in Nepal”.