The hype machine’s on high across the Bloomberg network today with a long and loving pump piece on Bollywood. Krrap beat Superman Returns in India this summer, as usual, and if you want to get a seat at the perpetually sold-out multiplexes it’s best to see American movies on weekends and Bollyflicks only mid-week:I just can’t muster any enthusiasm when the movies they praise are Krrish and KANK

“Krrish” was still running as many as three shows a day six weeks after its debut. The re- entry of “Superman,” one of the globe’s most popular superheroes, was down to one daily showing after five weeks… Locally produced films such as “Omkara” and “Veer-Zaara” enjoy a 95 percent share throughout India. [Link]

The rush of Amrikan investment in Bollywood (Disney, Sony, Fox) will bear fruit in a Chris Rock movie next year called I Think I Love My Wife:

News Corp.’s Fox Searchlight Pictures is co-producing two films with UTV… “I Think I Love My Wife” stars Chris Rock. UTV is putting up $7 million in that $14 million deal. Both films will be released in the first quarter of 2007… [Link]

I Think I Love My Wife is a remake of the French comedy Chloe in the Afternoon and follows a married man (Rock) who is tempted when an old lover re-enters the picture. Kerry Washington has been tapped to play the old girlfriend. Gina Torres is set to play Rock’s wife… Rock will star in the comedy and also co-wrote the screenplay. [Link]

A crush of desi American fans forced KANK to stop filming at Grand Central last year. Ironically, Mira Nair had much less trouble filming The Namesake at a train station in Calcutta:

Khan says that late last year, director Karan Johar asked for permission to shoot a scene for Khan’s movie “Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna” (Never Say Goodbye) at Grand Central Terminal in New York. Khan says they got the go-ahead because Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese had filmed there without hitches. The crowds were so bad that the crew had to stop, forcing Johar to move to a station in New Haven, Connecticut, Khan says. [Link]

Indian multiplexes are much more luxurious than American ones:

… multiplexes [in India] will double to about 150 by the end of this year from 73 in March 2005… “Krrish” … [added] Western-style merchandising of figurines and costumes along with screenings in state-of-the-art theaters, some of which have hostesses that supply blankets and pillows and serve snacks. Singapore… is promoting “Krrish” tours…

Multiplex chains in malls feature air conditioning, concession stalls with granite counters and high-tech projection and sound systems. Some have a special section that resembles business class in an aircraft, with wide, comfortable seats and hostess service. Ticket prices approach 700 rupees, a 35-fold increase over the old stand-alone, single-screen theaters in decrepit buildings with hard chairs, fans for cooling and a lack of power backup that can stop a film in mid-screening during an outage…

Movies are released simultaneously instead of in a staggered schedule common in the 1960s and 1970s, when the number of movie prints was limited to about 100. [Link]

Fixing investment rules allowed bank rather than gangster financing:

In the 1970s, India imposed a peak personal income tax of 97.75 percent. Reinvestment in the film industry plunged and black money, or undeclared income, became the funding method of choice, producer Bedi says.

“It became a purely cash-based industry,” he says. “People with a natural propensity for cash moved in, which was directly underworld and indirectly through construction. The mid-1970s to the mid-1990s was the worst period, with extortion, shooting attempts and murders.”

… in 2001… filmmaking was classified as an industry. That opened Bollywood to funding from financial institutions such as the Industrial Development Bank of India, whose charter allows it to lend only to businesses that fit in an industry… Rates vary from 10.5 percent to 12.5 percent, and the term of the loan ranges from 18 to 24 months… In 2004, 38 percent of Bollywood movies were made with money from such new financiers… [Link]

The actual size of Bollywood revenues isn’t that large compared to their outsized hold on people’s imagination: $1.5B vs. Hollywood’s $9B. And both are dwarfed by non-entertainment industries. For example, Infosys alone did almost as much in sales last year as all of Bollywood.

In 2005, Hollywood’s U.S. box office collections were $8.99 billion, according to the Web site of the Motion Picture Association of America. In comparison, the Indian box office took in the equivalent of $1.14 billion. [Link]

Will the rising sophistication of biz models bring an end to ripping off Hollywood? Nah.

Today’s producers have several ways to recoup their investment — from the sale of TV, music and overseas rights to home video and merchandising. “You now sell every aspect connected to the movie… That’s why the total revenue related to a movie production is increasing…” “You can actually make your money on Thursday before the movie comes out on Friday by selling various rights…” [Link]

Bollywood is about as old as Hollywood:

India’s movie-viewing and film-making history dates to 1896 — about the same time as Hollywood’s. Auguste and Louis Lumiere screened moving pictures for the first time in India at a Bombay hotel. They used a device they created called the Cinematograph, which was a camera, projector and printer rolled into one…

“Alam Ara” (The Light of the World), released in 1931, was the first Indian talkie. The film introduced song-and- dance routines, which became a key part of Indian films… In 1947, the partition of the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan brought an influx of talent to Bombay… [Link]

There are crazed white Bollywood fans as well:

“Bollywood is the only other pan-global cultural alternative to Hollywood… ” In April, during a Bollywood film festival in France, the cast of “Veer-Zaara” (2004) visited a Virgin Megastore on the Champs-Elysees… The promotion was cut short after several thousand fans mobbed the store and blocked traffic. “And those were not Indians in France,” Khan, 40, says. “Those were French people.” [Link]

Vikram Chandra muses about the worldwide appeal of Bollywood:

I remember going out for a family dinner at an Italian restaurant in Detroit. The Italian waiter overheard our conversation on Hindi cinema and asked me, “Do you know Amitabh Bachchan?” Apparently, he had watched Deewar in his village!

The audience of Hindi films in the West are constantly being pulled by two different kinds of reactions. They have been taught to cultivate a distaste for the supposed escapism of Hindi cinema. Some find it kitschy and yet also connect to it in certain ways.

I have come across so many Westerners who weep buckets after watching our films. For many, the concept of psychological realism being the only… way of representing reality is so false and cocooned. Perhaps one can’t ignore the subterranean presence of Hindi films these days. [Link]

I’m no stranger to the argument that Bollywood will inherit the earth, or at least the developing-country, earnest, non-snarky masses. I’ve made the same argument about the Midwestern appeal of Bombay Dreams, a musical excoriated by its NYC critics. And it’s absolutely true that Hollywood often underplays emotion to the point of stoic Nordic caricature.

But I just can’t muster any enthusiasm when the movies offered up as a paragon of Bollywood excellence are Krrish and Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna. They aren’t just emotional, they’re brain-dead simplistic, written at a preschool level. Any one of the stars has 10x the emotional subtlety in real life as the screenwriters have given them on screen. Everything about those characters and situations rings dumb and fake, fake, fake. And to exalt the product placement of Krrish, which turn it into little more than a three-hour commercial, a level of placement obscenely disrespectful to its customers, is disgusting.

Go see Omkara, Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, Devdas, Dil Se, Bombay, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai if you want to talk the best of escapist entertainment. Don’t polish spamturds and claim they’re greatness.