Now that the Hollywood-Bollywood Great Waltz seems set to happen, mixed star-casts are also on the cards. Reliance Big Pictures, which has a slate of 18 films releasing this year, is currently producing a couple of films with Indian actors, technicians and US-based artistes working together. One of them is Hrithik Roshan starrer Kites.
"Slumdog's success is not going to be one-off," says Rajesh Sawhney, president, Reliance Big Entertainment. "We're getting into a phase where almost every major global business has begun flirting with India. The challenge will be to find the right scripts to collaborate on."
Bollywood is asking the million-rupee question: Is Slumdog India's Crouching Tiger?
The verdict is unanimous — the technicians have opened the doors of the west to the Indian film industry.
Cinematographer Santosh Sivan said, "There are not many awards in India that give technicians due credit. Most films don't look into these finer details, but now directors would want to make a good film that is technically sound."
It seems to be a case of being at the right place at the right time, too. Slumdog is after all the sum total of being upbeat even in trying times and overcoming them.
Three wins at the 81st Academy Awards by three geniuses — musician AR Rahman, sound mixer Resul Pookutty and lyricist Gulzar — could pave the way for more handshakes between Hollywood and Bollywood.
Says Bharti Enterprises chairman and group CEO Sunil Bharti Mittal: "Slumdog's Oscar win signals the arrival of India on the world entertainment stage."
That may be a bit rich, but the accolades for Slumdog could bring many international producers to the country, especially to Indian sound mixing studios, which, music composers and sound engineers claim, are as well-equipped and capable as international studios.
Bollywood icons have reservations on Oscar, Gulzar says Slumdog isn't a cult film anyway
The nation may be celebrating its bounty of Oscars, but two of Bollywood's titans — Amitabh Bachchan and Aamir Khan — were muted in their praise.
While sending his warmest congratulations to AR Rahman and sound mixer Resul Pookutty, Bachchan expressed doubts about whether the Oscars "are the ultimate and final recognition for every film made in the world." He didn't seem to think that the Oscar "deserves the kind of attention that it does," given that it "is a film award ceremony conducted in the US."
Superstar Amitabh Bachchan has long made it clear that he isn't enamoured of the Oscars. Slumdog Millionaire's success at the Academy Awards has done little to change his mind. In an email interview, Bachchan explains his stand, questioning if the Oscars should be considered the ultimate and final recognition for every film made in the world. Excerpts:
Do you think too much hoopla is being made about the Oscars?
This is a typical media exercise. Start something, then look for celebrity endorsement for or against it, initiate controversy, and guarantee good copy. By the end of it, the perpetrator of the 'crime' is forgotten and some vulnerable celebrity has his neck dangling on the anvil.
Six weeks ago when actor Irrfan Khan was in Jaipur, he had foretold an Oscar sweep for Slumdog Millionaire which bordered on over-enthusiasm at the time. But, on Monday in Los Angeles he was among the film's ecstatic crew that walked away with eight, the maximum, golden statuettes, just as he had predicted.
Khan who played the inquisitive police inspector who sees truth in the film's protagonist suspected of manipulating the game show could not sleep the night before the ceremony.
