From Forbes.com:

Bollywood's Hottest
Liz Moyer, 12.20.06, 11:30 AM ET


In Pictures: Bollywood's Top Hits Of 2006


Bollywood is hot.

Seven Hindi films passed the $2 million mark at the U.S. box office in 2006--a far cry from what Hollywood puts out, but certainly another sign that India's film industry is capturing broad, even global, appeal.

To put it in perspective, Hindi films made up half of the 14 foreign language films that grossed more than $2 million in the U.S. this year--more than any other language. That is a record.

In Pictures: The Top Bollywood Movies Of 2006
Industry analysts estimate that the Hindi film industry has already grossed more than £40 million (or $78 million) over the last six months of 2006, the highest in recent years, boosted by blockbusters including Rang De Basanti and Kabhi Alvida Na Kehana (KANK). Late blockbuster releases from 2005-- Fanaa and Krrish--still continued to earn money in 2006.

Bollywood is the informal name for the Mumbai-based Hindi/Urdu-language film industry, thought it is often incorrectly used as a term to describe all of the sub-continent's films. But it certainly is the best known outside India.

The industry is making more star-driven commercial films with bigger budgets, and "audiences are responding," says Gitesh Pandya, editor of the Web site BoxOfficeGuru.com, which tracks trends in the movie industry.

Heck, even big American actors are responding. George Clooney, star of Good Night And Good Luck, Syriana, and Ocean's Eleven, was quoted earlier this month on a popular news Web site about Bollywood as saying he would be willing to jump into the action there.

Bollywoodworld.com reported that Clooney praised advances in the industry's filmmaking and said he'd love to appear in a high-profile musical production set in India. "There is a small market in the States as of now, but it will be fun if it catches on, because it is such a positive way of looking at filmmaking, and I really love that. I truly think it's fun," Clooney is quoted as saying.

Bollywood also has its share of scandal. A star of one of the year's biggest movies, Lage Raho Munnabhai, was found guilty in November of possessing illegal weapons in a case dating back to a series of bomb blasts in 1993.

The actor, Sanjay Dutt, originally faced five charges, ranging from conspiracy to possession of illegal weapons.

And earlier this month, a lawyer filed a criminal case against former Miss World Aishwarya Rai and Hrithik Roshan, actors in the movie Dhoom 2, because they had an on-screen kiss.

The lawsuit accused the pair of lowering the dignity of Indian women and encouraging obscenity among India's youth. Legal experts say that the suit is almost certain to be thrown out, though it does reflect a conservatism about movies that would be unfamiliar to most Americans.

Hindi film distributors are being far more aggressive in marketing their films, as anyone with digital cable service knows when they view their pay-per-view and on-demand channels. A distributor called BodVod has deals with Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications, Rogers, Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) Video and others, for example.

This year, BodVod got Oscar contender Rang de Basanti released to these on-demand cable channels, another first for Bollywood. The distributor will debut two other Hindi films, 15 Park Avenue and 36 China Town, through on-demand channels next year.

Yeah anwar, I noticed that too. Yikes.

Here's a NY Times article about Bwood:

For Some Moviegoers, It’s ‘Hooray for Bollywood’

By KAREEM FAHIM
Published: January 3, 2007
NORTH BERGEN, N.J., Dec. 27 — Swollen ticket lines, shouting children, tempers rising as the movies sold out: This was any suburban multiplex during the holidays.

Vada pav sandwiches and mango kulfi were sold at the concession stand. Conversations were in Gujarati or Hindi. A poster in the lobby advertised an action film starring Aishwarya Rai on one of six screens showing Indian cinema.

“It reminds me of home,” said Ambika Sikka, 26, who had come with her husband to see “Bhagam Bhag,” a movie about a theater troupe that travels from India to London. (Plot: Harassed actress quits troupe. Actors search for new heroine in London. Accidentally steal heroin from gangsters. Mystery and hilarity follow.)

The Columbia Park Cinema 12 sits at one end of a gloomy underground parking lot at a shopping mall just off the approach to the Lincoln Tunnel. Half of its 12 screens, called CinePlaza, are permanently reserved for Indian films, making it the largest such complex on the East Coast, according to its operator, Vijay Shah.

On Wednesday nights, when the tickets are half price, the 12-plex is crammed with customers eager to see the latest hits from Bollywood, India’s Bombay-based, Hindi-language movie industry, or other regional Indian cinema.

For the mostly Indian audience that comes to this transformed suburban theater, a trip to the movies is still an outing, at once a family affair, a reminder of home and a chance to experience a beloved cinematic tradition.

“The Indian movie theaters are like community centers,” said Suketu Mehta of Brooklyn, who wrote “Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found,” and has attended the CinePlaza with his parents. “It’s a very cheap round trip home.”

But these days Mr. Shah’s business, one of the most successful Bollywood movie houses in the country, is being threatened.

Two weeks ago, the owner of the mall, Forest City Ratner Companies, won approval to redevelop the section where the CinePlaza is situated, perhaps into a residential tower, according to township officials.

“I’m not sure what I’m going to do,” said Mr. Shah, an engineer who entered the cinema business several years ago, and has already changed location once.

He said he had already started looking for another space to rent. “I knew that sooner or later this was going to happen,” he said.

Indian cinemas have sprung up across the country, signaling both the growth of the South Asian population and the increasing popularity of films from the subcontinent. Last year, Hindi-language films, many of them made in what is now called Mumbai, had by far their most successful year in the United States, with, among others, 8 of the 15 highest-grossing foreign-language films, said Gitesh Pandya, the editor of the Web site boxofficeguru.com.

There were 228,000 Asian Indians living in New Jersey in 2005, according to the Census Bureau, and the number living in New York City is about the same.

“For South Asians afflicted by homesickness like I was, it was a wonderful place where other people were in love with these crazy movies like you were,” said Mr. Mehta, who as a teenager watched Indian movies on Queens Boulevard after his family moved to Jackson Heights from India.

When videotapes of the movies became easier to find, some theaters closed down. But in the mid-1990s, as South Asians grew tired of the poor quality of the videotapes — or perhaps just craved an evening out — cinemas regained their popularity.

Today, Indian films can be found playing all over the country, with one Web site listing almost 100 cinemas in 20 states. In California, for example, the Naz8 cinemas feature eight-screen multiplexes, many showing the same films as Mr. Shah’s theater.

Mr. Shah and Naz8 share a large part of the American market, although they face competition from distributors of Indian films who make deals with American theater owners on their own, Mr. Pandya said.

About 6:30 on Wednesday night, Mr. Shah buzzed around the lobby of the cinema with a walkie-talkie as the crowds poured in.

Tushar Gupta and his friends, all college students, took a bus here, trusting that Govinda, a star of “Bhagam Bhag,” would make them laugh.

“Let’s hope he lives up to expectations,” Mr. Gupta said. Govinda’s return to the screen after a hiatus in politics was one of many entertainment subplots here, a comeback almost everyone seemed to comment on.

Birender Anand, 20, waited for his cousin in front of a large, cardboard diorama for “Dhoom 2,” a popular action movie featuring brooding, gorgeous Bollywood stars. He was home from college in Ohio, and happy to be among so many Indians. Mr. Anand said his turban drew a lot of attention in Ohio — “I get stuff all the time.”

Lines formed, showtimes passed, the cinema became busier and Mr. Shah became irritable, at one point threatening to cancel a screening if order was not restored in a line. Afterward, he would not say how many tickets had been sold, and was generally secretive when it came to business affairs, citing worries about competitors. But that night, several hundred people watched films at his six cinemas, which seat approximately 1,300 people.

Mr. Shah said he had plans to expand his audience, perhaps by showing films in Spanish, Korean and Japanese. “I can do this with passion,” he said. “I do my homework. I am the janitor and the owner.”

Asked if he was ready to open an all-Indian movie theater, maybe with the help of an outside investor, Mr. Shah said there was not enough business to make such a project sustainable.

But Mr. Mehta said it was only a matter of time before a multiscreen theater showing only Indian films opened in the area.

“I think there should be some kind of landmark status, some kind of protection for places like this,” he said.

He explained that unlike those in the United States, many cinemas in India were divided by class, ranging from multiplexes with waiters to traveling tents.

“What unites the people in the audience here is love of Bollywood films, and homesickness,” he said. “For three hours, they are momentarily sated by watching these creatures of light.”

guys my take on that bollywood making money right and left in overseas from all crap they are churning, is no different from hollywood bad films making a lot of money as every new release deserve a watch by avid/week movie goers, adding revenues!

but, bollywood films are being screened in bad quality, on bad sub optimal screen, that has drastically reduced my desire to watch those films in the theatre!We live in USA, not in a remote indian villiage to deserve this kinda inferior projection for premium price!!

I do not have time/money to go watch same movie, multiple time, to catch on optimum presentation!!I would rather NOT GO!

Unfortunately wankas who run these regional type movie houses are clueless what are you talking about!

So far I caught only one good projection in main stream theatre of MHN that was released in main theatre.

Most of these bad projections are for YRF movies! starting from Mohabtaen, downwards each single one was crappy audio!

I understand fully that most of the audience consider movie going experience,associated with popcorn, samosa, chaii, rasgula, kulfi with big screen, and they them self do not have any clue beyond that.

But unfortunately it has reduced my viewing to minimal, as I am not willing to accept that.

Indian film makers, theatre owners, distributors, dvd makers, they do not give a shit to quality and customer satisfaction


if it would be a main stream theatre and I would complain re this inferior projection, I bet they would have not left any options unturned to satisfy my claim, but here these clueless theatre organizers insist that they gave you the best!

Bottom line! I am hands up here! and refuse to patronize these theatres and movie makers, with my $50-100, per visit, irrespective, how much they are making without me!

It is sad and pathetic! I am not cinemaholic that I have to be in theatre every friday night to watch this junk all the ways!

I agree with arsh. For me, my Bollywood movie watching pretty much revolves around the big titles that come by once in awhile. Everything else I wait for on disc for rent. Almost all of these screen in nice mainstream theaters here in NYC (mostly the newer AMCs, which here are very good compared to AMCs elsewhere, and The Imaginasian theater). It's been awhile since I've gone to Jackson Heights, Queens or to a dedicated Indian theater (I still haven't visited Cineplaza yet and would like to soon). The only problem I've witnessed is the lack of digital sound on some of the prints...some have it, some don't. Also from time to time, AMC doesn't screen them in DD auditoriums so you're left with SR sound only. It's tough to complain though since if you go to other parts of the country, it's still regionalized....hopefully more chains in the US and Canada will catch on and force regional theaters to upgrade.

you cant imagine, only rana can he watched DON non DD/DTS surround and me DHOOM 2 I thought I should have rather cleaned my nose with that money yaar and throw it away!

From ABCNews.com:

Forget Popcorn: Why Potatoes are the World's Number One Movie Snack
International Crowd Munches on Flavors From Home at New Jersey Bollywood Theater

By REBECCA LEE

Jan. 27, 2007 — Popcorn and the movies are as synonymous as peanut butter and jelly, but one audience prefers a version of the potato.

Every Friday and Saturday night, like most multiplexes around the country, Columbia Park Cinema 12 in North Bergen, N.J., is bustling with munching, soda guzzling, candy consuming movie-goers of all ages. But some other delicacies are also favored among this audience.

Columbia Park is not your typical movie theatre. Half of their 12 screens are reserved for Indian films most Americans have never heard of, with "Guru," "Pokkiri," and "Salaam-E-Ishq" currently topping its lineup.

They are the latest hits from India's Bombay-based, Hindi-language movie industry, Bollywood, and other regional Indian cinema.

According to owner and operator Vijay Shah, they have the largest assortmant of these movies on the East Coast. For the largely Indian audience, a trip to North Bergen's multiplex is at once a family-bonding activity, a celebration of Indian culture, and a chance to stay in touch with their cultural heritage.

"What unites the people in the audience here is love of Bollywood films and homesickness," said Suketu Mehta, a Brooklyn native whose family moved to Jackson Heights, N.Y., from India when he was a teenager.


Samosas, Mango Kulfi


Indian cinemas have sprung up all across America, signaling both an increase in the Indian population and the budding popularity of these films, even among the U.S. audience.

In 2006, eight of the 15 highest-grossing foreign language films came from India, said Gitesh Pandya, editor of the Web site boxofficeguru.com.


With half a million Indian Asians in the New York metropolitan area, many Indian cinema owners, including Shah, hope to continue selling out show after show.

Those in attendance at North Bergen's multiplex on a recent evening said these movies are more than just a chance to unwind at the end of the week — they provide the opportunity to connect with their roots, and that includes eating traditional foods

A visit to the concession stand offers the typical popcorn, candy and soda along with papa chat, samosas, vada pav and mango kulfi.

Most of the snacks are made from potatoes and are often mixed with chick peas, yogurt, and assorted spices which give it flavor and variety.

For this crowd, popcorn is not the food of choice, it's the potato. But for the moviegoers, nothing can top the appeal of the entertainment.

"We're Indian, right?" one moviegoer commented. "So we love Bollywood."

I finally visited the Cineplaza. While the location is not optimal (the strip mall and parking lot are kinda sketch), the multiplex seems pretty new. The picture and sound quality were excellent (with the proper DD and big screen, no less). Half the theater shows Bollywood and the other half shows Western films for 2 bucks (300 and Grindhouse, to name a few). They divided the lobby for ticket sales (one concession stand devoted to the 2 dollar films, the other for the 10 dollar Bwood). The ticket seller seemed confused and confirmed with me that I wanted to see a Hindi movie (since I'm not Indian). But I had a good experience (they had the proper intermission too, almost 10 minutes). I will definitely go back and I'd hate to see it close.

And now the Cineplaza has stopped screening Bwood flix! Where are we supposed to go now? Sigh.