Link: Bollywood isn't India's only show-biz player - Los Angeles Times.
The strong success of "Sivaji" has highlighted the fact that the Indian film industry, often considered synonymous with Bollywood, is actually far more diverse.
A country of more than a dozen official languages, India has several different "ollywoods" scattered across the subcontinent, churning out movies that cater mostly to regional audiences.
Indeed, although Bollywood's colorful song-and-dance spectacles generally boast the biggest budgets, the biggest stars and the biggest domestic and international penetration, the Hindi film industry in Mumbai accounts for only about a quarter of the 1,000 or so movies produced in India annually.
Almost as prolific are "Kollywood," the Tamil film industry based here, and "Tollywood," its Telugu-language counterpart in the neighboring state of Andhra Pradesh. Combined, the two entertainment powerhouses released nearly twice as many feature films last year as Bollywood.
"Everyone thinks Bollywood is the biggest in India, but it's actually the south Indian movie market that is bigger than the Hindi market," said Hetal Adesara, editor of Businessofcinema.com. (Hindi is the dominant language of India, spoken by more than 300 million people, concentrated mostly in the north.)
The growth in regional filmmaking, along with India's overall economic boom, has helped spur optimistic forecasts of the potential of the country's movie industry.
A report this year by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry pegged India's film business at $2.1 billion in 2006. That figure will more than double by 2011, the report projected.
Last year's highest-grossing movies in India were Bollywood creations, led by "Krrish," starring the highly bankable Hrithik Roshan as a caped superhero. The movie, which made it into a handful of American theaters, raked in about $20 million worldwide, more than triple its initial investment. (In India, tickets at even the best cinemas in big cities never cost more than $5.)
This year, Bollywood has struggled to match 2006's record at the box office. Several high-profile films with big-name stars have flopped.
Still, Bollywood's global reach is not in any doubt....
