After years of Asian films mimicking Hollywood plot lines, American film companies are now looking East. Western film companies are not only looking for a new story line, they are are also looking at expanding their audience and probably igniting a whole new genre of multi cultural films.

The latest cross cultural cinematic tie up is between Twentieth Century Fox and the Star entertainment and media group. The 50:50 joint venture will produce Asian-language films for worldwide distribution. The AFP reported that the new company, Fox Star Studios, will initially begin work in Mumbai India, the home of Bollywood, with later plans to expand into China and Southeast Asia. Both companies are units of media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

Fox star studios is not the first multi cultural cimematic tie up between Asia and Hollywood. Large movie moguls such as Warner Bros., Walt Disney Co. and Sony Pictures have all ventured East to indulge in this emerging genre.

Major Hollywood studios producing Asian movies include Sony Pictures Entertainment with its Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia, which invested in Ang Lee’s Oscar-winning kung fu hit “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” Later in 2007 Sony Pictures Entertainment produced its own Bollywood musical, “Saawariya.”

Warner Bros. Pictures set up a joint venture with China’s state-run China Film Group and Hengdian Group in 2004, and has invested in Hindi films.

The Walt Disney Co. last year released a Chinese-language children’s movie that mixed live action and computer animation. It has also teamed up with Indian studio Yash Raj Films to make computer-animated movies.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 11th, 2008 at 11:37 am and is filed under Trade, Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.