The Hollywood/Bollywood Connection

Sylvester Stallone and Snoop Dogg in saris? When East has met West in the movies.

Shriya Saran in “The Other End of the Line”

Following a career as a professional tennis player, Ashok Amritraj built something of an empire as the producer of those ubiquitous ’90s softcore thrillers that still play late night Skinimax every so often, before trading in Shannon Tweed for a nine-foot-tall John Travolta in dreads with “Battlefield Earth,” one of Amritraj’s first Hollywood productions. Now legitimized with Hyde Park, one of the most prolific production companies in town, Amritraj bankrolled “The Other End of the Line,” which was the first time he produced a film with a nod to his Indian heritage, casting Bollywood starlet Shriya Saran as an Indian credit card call center employee whose job leads to a romance with a San Francisco-based identity theft victim (Jesse Metcalfe). Ultimately, the film died an unceremonious death in limited release late last year, but Amritraj made a far more important connection between Hollywood and Bollywood by closing financing deals with Indian-based studios Reliance and the animation studio Toonz.

Snoop Dogg in “Singh Is Kinng”

As the title says, Singh is royalty, so who was Snoop Dogg to refuse when he was asked to rap over the Bollywood film’s closing credits? Actually, it was British Bhangra music trio RDB who are said to have convinced Snoop to partner with star Akshay Kumar on the film’s theme song, an ode to the commoner-turned-crime boss played by Kumar in the action comedy. For a reported $475,000, Snoop donned a turban and filmed a scene with Kumar in Chicago, rapping “Yo, what up. This Big Snoop Dogg. Represent the Punjabi. Aye ya, hit em with this.” It didn’t take long before the cagey self-promoter crowned himself “America’s First Bollywood Superstar” and the song rocketed up the charts in India where it became a hit in the clubs. The same was true of the film, which became the highest grossing Bollywood film of 2008 after its release in August last year.

“The Guru”

Screenwriter Tracey Jackson has no obvious connection to India, though in her official online bio, it simply explains, “She loves India. People said, ‘don’t write about India, nobody will make movies there,’” yet that didn’t stop her from penning both this film and “The Other End of the Line,” two of the most notable Hollywood/Bollywood crossovers produced by Hollywood, though neither made much of a splash at the box office. For “The Guru,” “Elizabeth” director Shekhar Kapur lent his name as an executive producer for what was otherwise a pretty raucous comedy starring Jimi Mistry as an aspiring actor who travels to America and unwittingly auditions for a porno, leading to his unlikely christening as a sex guru. Heather Graham and Marisa Tomei are the women who fall under his spell and into his conga line, as “Party Girl” director Daisy von Scherler Mayer exploits every opportunity to squeeze a Bollywood musical sequence into the film.

“The Love Guru”

Considering Mike Myers’ sitar spin on the Steve Miller Band’s “The Joker” may be the only worthwhile scene from his otherwise lamentable 2008 dud, it’s not surprising he saved the film’s only full-on Bollywood sequence for the end, complete with Jessica Alba clad in a gold sari and Verne Troyer rocking a turban. Although the film was subject to early scrutiny by some Hindu organizations for its portrayal of their religion, Myers showed great affection for Indian culture in the sequence, which he has said was inspired by the Bollywood films he watched on late night Toronto cable as an 11-year-old and the realization that it was similar to one of his other films. “It was so different and, ultimately, it’s ‘Austin Powers.’ It’s all singing, all dancing, very bright color palettes. I didn’t know that then because I hadn’t written it yet, but I was like, ‘This is just a fascinating parallel universe that’s going on,’” Myers told About.com at the film’s press junket, adding, “If a Bollywood director wants to hire a 45-year-old Scottish-English-Canadian actor, who does comedies, I’m their man.”

“Roadside Romeo”

Although he’s not exactly Mickey Mouse, Disney launched their first Bollywood co-production (with Yash Raj Films) with the animated rags to riches tale of Romeo, a pampered pooch whose family moves away to London and leaves him to fend for himself in the slums of Mumbai. (The trailer can be found here.) Taking a page from the American animation marketing playbook, stars Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor were tapped to voice the leads of Romeo and Laila, the lounge singer for whom Romeo falls. Despite a limited run in America — perhaps because the film’s plot bears a passing resemblance to Disney’s own “Oliver and Company” — Indian audiences attended in droves. The film made more money in four days than “The Incredibles” did during its entire run in the country. Along with “Slumdog Millionaire,” it probably made Warner Bros. more comfortable with bankrolling the live-action “Chandni Chowk to China,” the kung fu comedy that became only the third Bollywood film to be produced by a major Hollywood studio.

[Additional photos: "Bride and Prejudice," Miramax, 2004; "Kambakkht Ishq," Eros International, 2009; "Marigold," Hyperion Pictures, 2007; "Singh is Kinng," Big Picture Entertainment, 2008; "The Guru," Universal Pictures, 2003; "The Love Guru," Paramount, 2008, "Roadside Romeo," Walt Disney Studios/Yash Raj Films, 2008]

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