Reliance Big Entertainment, the media and entertainment arm of the Reliance ADA Group, has signed two development deals in Hollywood with actress Julia Roberts’ Red Om Films and director Brett Ratner’s Rat Entertainment.
In 2008, RBE had announced seven similar deals with Hollywood production entities at Cannes. These units were owned by celebrities Nicolas Cage, Jim Carrey, George Clooney, Chris Columbus, Tom Hanks, Brad Pitt and Jay Roach.
“We’re pretty much on track with the first projects from these deals, so we hope to announce further details at Cannes,” commented RBE chairman Amit Khanna on the 20 plus projects that are currently in development from eight of these partnerships. These projects are expected to go into production near the end of 2009. “The company is also on track with its deal with DreamWorks, despite the global liquidity crunch, and has now acquired the studios’ development slate of 17 projects from Paramount,” Khanna further added.
Khanna sounded positive and optimistic about the recent collaboration with Julia Roberts and Brett Ratner for creative partnership,”Our innovative foray into Hollywood has proven very productive on the development front and we are now looking forward to moving into the filmmaking stage over the coming months,”. “We were immediately impressed by both Julia’s and Brett’s enthusiasm for our creative partnership plan,” he continued.
On the financial front, Reliance Big Entertainment president Rajesh Sawhney said,”These creative partnerships will lead to Reliance co-financing with the majority of the major US studios as we are totally respectful of the existing first-look deals that each of our partners enjoys.”
RBE will also retain Indian rights to the films it co-finances and hopes to attract some productions to shoot in India.
Now that RBE has the option to co-finance the projects, Rajesh Sawhney has said, “From the conversations to date, we know that the respective studios will welcome our development silos and our subsequent co-financing ability.”
With the approval of eight of the development project till date, RBE further hopes to have financial freedom. According to Reliance Big Entertainment, filmmakers of any green lit project – films that are financed – which Reliance co-finances will be given creative and financial freedom.
RBE also said that Reliance Big Picture, a division of Reliance Big Entertainment that will focus on media investments outside of India, saw the development deals as the first major building block in the creation of a virtual studio, or a new-generation media company.
With a slate of 18 projects in different languages, RBE has also launched its international sales division at EFM which includes the $30-million romantic thriller Kites, which stars Bollywood heartthrob Hrithik Roshan and Latin American star Barbara Mori will be seen acting.
“We regard Kites as an international film that is being produced with an Indian sensibility,” said RBE president Rajesh Sawhney.