CANNES: The formal announcement from the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) on its filmed entertainment business has finally been made on the third day of the Cannes Film Festival.
Reliance Big Entertainment is poised to invest $1 billion in 69 movies in nine languages over the next 12-15 months. Apart from these, there are at least 30 more films that are in various stages of negotiations.
These films include those in collaboration with other production houses as well as Reliance’s in-house films.
Announcing the same at Cannes were Reliance Entertainment chairman Amit Khanna, Rajesh Sawhney and Prasoon Joshi along with Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Ritesh Sidhwani.
Khanna says, "It is the diversity of choice apart from the $ 1 billion investment that will differentiate us from the rest."
As has already been reported by Businessofcinema.com, the company has inked a multiple film deal with vidhu Vinod Chopra, six film deal with Excel Entertainment and a two film deal with Sudhir Mishra.
As a part of the six films co-production deal with Excel Entertainment, the four films Rock On, Luck By Chance, Voice From The Sky and Don 2 have been known. The other two films were also announced at the conference. These include a murder mystery tentatively titled 7 Minutes to be directed by Abhinay Deo (Abhay fame) and a super natural thriller tentatively titled Accident Spot to be directed by Reema Kagti (Honeymoon Travels fame)
Vinod Chopra Films has inked a multiple film production deal to co-produce five feature films over the next three years. The first feature film under the production deal is a mainstream English language film, Broken Horses, which will be directed by Chopra while the second film is based on the classic Indian tale, Taalismaan, to be directed by Ram Madhvani. The announcement for balance three movies will be made in India on a later day.
Chopra has been working on the script for Broken Horses in Los Angeles with Abhijat Joshi, Jason Richman and Nick Pileggi. Broken Horses is a gangster film and casting of international actors for the film will commence soon. The film will be shot in the USA from January next year.
Additionally, Reliance has also inked a two film deal with Shyam Benegal, four film deal with Madhur Bhandarkar and a three film deal with Vivek Agnihotri.
Reliance is also setting up its distribution offices across India and in the overseas. "We will be setting up our offices in the US, UK, South East Asia, Middle East and Australia," said Khanna.
