India now produces over 850 films a year – around two per day. This clearly puts Bollywood ahead of Hollywood by one measure – approximately 450 films were released in the USA in 2006.
India’s Central Boards of Film Certification claim that over a period of just three months, approximately one billion Indian’s visit cinemas to catch the latest release.
In 2002, Bollywood sold 3.6 billion tickets and had total revenues (including admissions, DVDs, and television sales) of $1.3 billion, whereas Hollywood films sold 2.6 billion tickets and generated total revenues of US$51 billion. So Hollywood is clearly streets ahead in the count that really matters: money, money, money.
Ticket prices in Mumbai are rather cheaper than those on Sunset Boulevard or Leicester Square: a ticket for the latest Amir Khan spectacular starts at as little as nine rupees, a mere 10 pence, compared to the UK average of £6. You'd be lucky to get change from a tenner in London's West End.
In the USA, Hollywood movie budgets grow ever more extortionate. As an industry, American produced films spend around 40 per cent of their budget on marketing alone, in comparison to a modest 15 per cent for Bollywood productions.
Despite the number produced, Bollywood films tend to involve a slower filmmaking process than those coming out of California, due to India's relative lack of high tech production facilities.
Indian film also involves lower cost budgets, mainly due to the average storyline’s focus on family, domesticity and social interrelations; as opposed to those $100m plus Hollywood action movies that award their stars huge pay cheques.
Sources: Motion Picture Association of America, PWC, FICCI, Business Week
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