Apparently we are the 25th biggest cinema chain in the US

A good article from the LA Times that gives an overview of our cinema chain in the US. There is even mention of what we are doing on the digital front:

Seeking to upgrade the experience and the environment, Big Cinemas is spending $12 million to renovate theaters -- many of which it acquired from mom-and-pop operators -- with new digital projectors and sound systems, computerized accounting controls, stadium seating and concession stands serving Indian food.

...

Reliance reached out to Indian film distributors, offering to act as a "one-stop shop" to deliver their movies across the U.S. via a company-owned fiber-optic network that pipes films directly from Mumbai to New York. That assures quicker and cheaper distribution than in the past, when canisters of film would have to be flown in and could get held up in customs, causing costly delays.

The Hindi films are subtitles, so any of you non-Indians out there tempted by this, go and have a visit and see it for yourself. You can say that 'Patrick sent me" - but that won't qualify you for a free mango lassi drink or samosa. Just admire the digital picture.

Adlabs set to become Reliance MediaWorks

It was announced today that Adlabs Film is changing names and becoming Reliance MediaWorks.

The new moniker makes sense as not only do we not just do ad-films, which is how the name came about 30-odd years ago, but since Manmohan Shetty sold the business to Reliance ADAG we have grown significantly and expanded into many new areas of business. Here is how the Business Standard covered the news:

Adlabs Films, India's leading film and media services company, and a member of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, announched that it proposes to change its name to Reliance MediaWorks Limited, subject to shareholders and other requisite approvals.

For the year ended March 31, 2009, the Company delivered total revenues of Rs. 733 crores ($152 million), reflecting a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 80 per cent in the last three years.

The original name, Adlabs Films, was reflective of the company’s initial business as a film processing laboratory. Pursuant to the Reliance ADA Group acquiring the controlling stake in Adlabs in the year 2005, the company has witnessed transformational growth in the canvas and scale of its operations.

Commenting on the development, Anil Arjun, Chief Executive Officer said, “The name Reliance MediaWorks Limited more accurately reflects our identity as a diversified film and media services company with a global presence.

We are privileged to draw upon the international recognition of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group brand, to further strengthen our leadership position in the media and entertainment business. ”

And I guess we will no longer be confused with Atlabs, though this too has changed name to Deluxe Australia.

No word on a new logo (the one above is the group company logo) but I'm sure I will be getting new business cards before too long. However, not soon enough to take with me to IBC in Amsterdam next week, which I will be attending Friday-Tuesday, followed by the Judge Business School in Cambridge, where on Saturday 19th September I am giving a keynote on 'The Globalisation of Indian Cinema - A Corporate Perspective' and sharing a panel with distinguished guests like Anupam Kher, Parminder Vir and Partho Sen-Gupta, in conjuncture with the Cambridge Film Festival.

Adabs/Reliance - first to distribute films by fiber optic cable commercially

Distribution of digital cinema films to multiplexes by fibre optic cable has long been the (pipe) dream of the movie industry. Qwest and Fox tested it in 2000. Japan's NTT West tested it in 4K with WB, Paramount and Sony in 005-2006. But as of May this year, Adlabs together with Reliance Communication are doing it on a weekly commercial basis - week in, week out. From Indiantelevision.com:

Adlabs Digital Cinema adds that it has also established a world first by becoming the first and only operator in the world to-date to commercially distribute digital cinema films over the optic fiber cable (OFC). Using the network of Reliance Communications, over 2000 digital cinema shows to-date have come from digital copies delivered via OFC on a weekly commercial basis.

Films are encoded at Adlabs Digital Cinema Mastering Facility at Film City in Mumbai and sent over a 200Mbps connection to its Content Distribution and Logistics (CDL) Hub at Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City (DAKC) in Navi Mumbai, from where they are sent further via dedicated 100Mbps OFC to cinemas as far as Ahmedabad. OFC allows for transportation of digital cinema films that is faster, more reliable and more secure than any other form of delivery.

With Reliance Communication having laid down 80,000 kilometers of fiber all across India, we could not have asked for a better partner (and it helps having the same parent company in Reliance ADAG), though the 'last mile' to the multiplex we've had to install.

So forget hard drives or satellite. If you want to see the future of film distribution, book a ticket to Mumbai and come and visit us. We will treat you to a nice meal as well.

UPDATE: This news was covered by both Variety and THR.com.

Spielberg-Reliance deal signed - Paramount reaction is very gracefull

So at last the deal has been signed. Spielberg is officially exiting Paramount and setting up DreamWorks SKG as an independent entity with the backing of Anil Ambani's Reliance ADA Group. THR.com broke the news:

Steven Spielberg has finalized a deal to secure at least $500 million in funding from Mumbai-based Reliance Big Entertainment.

In a related transaction, JPMorgan Securities will lead a bank loan syndication giving Spielberg another $500 million or more for a total $1 billion-plus to re-create DreamWorks as a private company, allowing it to sever its current ties with Paramount. Documents were finalized Friday after representatives of the various parties reached a handshake agreement on deal terms Thursday night.

The pleasant surprise was how gracious Paramount was about Spielberg's exit:

In a surprise move, Paramount issued a statement saying that the departing DreamWorks principals were also free to take their employees with them. While the DreamWorks brass had exit clauses in their current contracts, they needed permission to bring other execs or staff along to a reconstituted DreamWorks.

"To facilitate a timely and smooth transition, Paramount has waived certain provisions from the original deal to clear the way for the DreamWorks principals and their employees to join their new company without delay," the studio said.

Spielberg, DreamWorks partner David Geffen and CEO Stacey Snider are expected to quickly tender their resignations from Paramount. A DreamWorks spokesman declined comment on the developments.

Paramount even issued a letter wishing the exiting team well. The studio has had time to prepare for this departure and plan its reaction. It may also be angling for a future distribution pact with the new DreamWorks. But I would like to believe that the good people at Paramount are sincere. However, others are already busy wooing Spielberg to distribute through them:

Next comes a distribution deal, which is why GE's Jeffrey Immelt and Universal's Ron Meyer were dining with Spielberg and Snider last Thursday and why NBC Universal boss Jeff Zucker spent the better part of that afternoon with Steven planning out the rebuild of the fire-ravaged Uni backlot. Given how Spielberg sees Universal as his professional home (he never moved his offices even after Paramount bought DreamWorks), I've always assumed he'd land there. Now, with Immelt and Zucker paying homage, it looks like another done deal no matter how much Geffen would dearly love to play one studio off of the other and mastermind a bidding war for Spielberg/Snider. And David himself? He keeps telling everyone that all he wants is to say goodbye to the movie biz.

The effectively reveres acquisition of DremWorks in 2005 - which infused new talent and vigor into the seemingly moribund Paramount - was what the studio needed and it is under Brad Gray's leadership much stronger as a result today. So much so that they can afford to see Spielberg leave.

Now the interesting thing will be to see what the Reliance and JP Morgan-backed DreamWorks does. Just don't expect Spielberg to start shooting a masala film with SRK next.

Is Anil Ambani the new backer of Spielberg?

Could Steven Spielberg and Dreamworks turn out to be the trump cards in the Ambani/Reliance/Adlabs ambition to expand in Hollywood? It would seem so, based on this report by Bloomberg and WSJ:

June 18 (Bloomberg) -- Steven Spielberg and Indian billionaire Anil Ambani are close to forming a venture that may help the movie director's DreamWorks SKG team exit from Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group will invest as much as $600 million in the studio, the Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter. The venture may borrow another $500 million to finance about six films a year, the Journal said. Reliance and Viacom declined to comment and spokesmen at DreamWorks were unavailable.

As of now it is still only a rumour, though an interesting one.

Reliance's second $1bn deal at Cannes, this time with the Hollywood 8

The follow up to Reliance Big Entertainment's Billion Dollar film production deal was unveiled on Sunday in Cannes. It may not quite rival MGM's claim of 'More Stars than there are in Heaven', but it is not far off.

Deals have been struck with the actors and their production houses listed below, to develop scripts that will go into production with established Hollywood studios, with Reliance coming in as co-financing partner. The deal does not replace the existing deals that these production outfits have with Universal etal, but suppements.

- Nicolas Cage (Saturn Productions);

- Jim Carrey (JCB 23);

- George Clooney (Smokehouse Productions)

- Chris Columbus (1492 Pictures)

- Tom Hanks (Playtone Productions)

- Brad Pitt (Plan B Entertainment)

- Jay Roach (Everyman Pictures)

(+ one that is as-yet un-announced)

More details on thr nature of the deals form the Calcutta Times:

Another day and another billion announcement from Anil Ambani whose Reliance Big Entertainment today announced in Cannes that it will provide “development funds to eight leading creative forces in Hollywood”.

The value of the 30 films being developed jointly will be a billion dollars, “but this will not be the billion dollars that we talked about the other day,”said Amit Khanna, who is chairman of Reliance Big Entertainment and has been acting as the entity’s chief spokesman in Cannes.

“What it means for the average Indian is a sense of pride that India has finally arrived on the global media map,” Khanna explained to The Telegraph after his main press conference.

A billion here, a billion there... Pretty soon it starts to add up to some real money.

As the Times of London also notes, "the deals represent the biggest entry into the western media market by an Indian group and mark a reverse to the flood of money that has been poured into the Indian film industry by Hollywood production houses in recent months." Coming, as it does, not long after Sony, Disney and NBC-Universal's investment spree in Bollywood.

As my intrepid namesake P. Frater at Variety notes, these deals are not meant to rock the Hollywood studios' boat:

Deals are described as “production silos” under which Reliance Big Entertainment provides development coin to enable the talent to nurture or acquire movie projects before taking them to the studios with which they have first-look arrangements. In a second stage, deals allow Reliance to participate in up to 50% of a movie’s subsequent production funding and to secure rights in India.

“We are totally respectful of the existing first-look deals that each of our partners enjoys and are confident that the respective studios will welcome our development silos and our subsequent co-financing ability,” said Reliance prexy Rajesh Sawhney. “We are breaking completely new ground and not just as an Indian-based company.”

Khanna said the silos will likely become involved with 30 projects in the next couple of years, of which at least 10 will go into production. Reliance execs and CAA reps, who brokered the deals, were at pains to explain that Reliance coin is supplementary to the stars’ first-look deals rather than alternatives.

“We will increase the speed and safety of the elevator, but the destination is still the top floor,” said Reliance Big Entertainment CEO Amit Khanna"

The key to understanding Reliance ADAG is not to think of it as an Indian company abroad, but also to recognise it as a company that occupies the number one, two and three position in its home market with regards to the 'competition'. This is not boasting, but the distilled essence of my experience after more than half a year here. Reliance ADAG does not enter ANY market in which it is not sure that it will be number one and will do everything to ensure that position.

As an example, see the announcement on the same day of the launch of Reliance's Big TV DTH service into 4,000 Indian towns, which aggressively undercuts the competitions' prices while offering a better technology platform. Also on the same day, Reliance ADAG's gaming group Zapak announced its own $100m acquisition fund for expansion.

Given the size of such undertakings, the company is not interested in small deals and something like the Lowry Digital acquisition (a relatively paltry $7.m in comparison) was undertaken because it was strategic and would ensure the company became number on it this particular field.

Returning to Cannes, the second Billion Dollar Deal is particularly timely THR.com notes:

“This is a good thing for the studios with equity financing drying up thanks to the financial crunch,” said an agent from CAA, which brokered the deal. “It provides a new source of funding for the studios, and gives the studios a foothold in the India, a market they are all expanding into.”

If you doubt the crdit crunch impact on production, then read the IHT article 'Hollywood dreams face cold financial reality' and expect to read more in the future about what Mr Khanna (pictured above) calls "the reach and potential of India's steadily growing soft power".

Photocredit: Viewimages.com

Warner and Sony go to India, Adlabs goes to Malaysia

Having previously dipped their corporate toe in the warm flow of the Indian film production river, both Warner Bros and Sony Pictures are now taking the full plunge in. Sony has signed a three-picture deal with a major Indian production studio in a deal worth Rs 2.5bn ($62m), while Warners is pursuing a remake of The Wedding Crashers. From THR.com (as the-trade-magazine-formerly-known-as-the-Hollywood-Reporter now insists on calling itself):

In what would mark the first authorized remake of a Hollywood film here, Warner Bros. Pictures India is in discussions with Bollywood banner Orion Pictures for an official remake of the 2005 comedy "Wedding Crashers."

Orion Pictures, headed by producer Mukesh Talreja and director Nikhil Advani, is co-producing WBPI's Bollywood debut with veteran filmmaker Ramesh Sippy, "Chandni Chowk to China."

"We are in talks with Orion Pictures on the possibility of remaking 'Wedding Crashers' in India. Orion has shown keen interest, and they have lined up some of the best talent for this project," WBPI managing director Blaise Fernandes told The Hollywood Reporter on Monday, adding that a deal has not yet been signed.

Somebody at WB must have finally woken up to the fact that if Indian film producers see a film they like they will take the concept and make it their own. Without buying the re-make rights. That is how Three Men and a Baby became Heyy Babyy while Love, Actually morphed into Salaam-e-Ishq and most recently this Diwali's big Hindi release Ghajini is a remake of Tamil film also called Ghajini, which, if you liked this story of how "A man, suffering from short-term memory loss, uses notes, tattoos and photo's to hunt down his girlfriend's killer", Amazon suggests you might also like Memento. If you can't beat them, beat them to the re-make at least.


Sony Pictures has meanwhile gone one bolder, after the so-so performance of Saawariya, with a three picture deal that will put them firmly on the Bollywood map, as well as buying world-wide distribution rights to Hindi comedy Meerabai Not Out. According to Variety:

Uday Singh, Sony Pictures India topper added, "Sony has several established platforms in India -- TV, theatrical distribution, music and homevideos. We intend to put all these behind the film and make it one of this summer's biggest attractions."

Amongst other ventures, Sony Television India is currently screening the newly created IPL (Indian Premiere League) cricket matches that has viewers glued to their sets and advertising rupees pouring into the channel's coffers. In relation to the co-production deal, Times of India adds that:

Sony's investment sets a new benchmark for big budget movie making in India. In its deal with PNC, the first of the three movies will be a comic extravaganza set in Las Vegas. Titled Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram , the film is budgeted at Rs 70 crore. The two other films are in a conceptual stage. Says Pritish Nandy of PNC: ‘‘An investment by a major international studio like Sony shows the changing paradigm of Indian motion picture business.''

This comes not long after Disney went Bollywood, 20th Century Fox set up base in Nitin Desai Studios and NBC Univ bought a $150m stake in NDTV, leaving just Paramount still outside looking in. This is ironic, as the best article on Hollywood pushing into Bollywood (New York Times' Hollywood Starts Making Bollywood Films in India) quotes the aforementioned studio towards the end of the article:

“The importing of American films into India is not filling a gap,” Gareth Wigan, a vice chairman of Columbia TriStar, the Sony division that produced the film, said by telephone from Los Angeles. “You’re not bringing a dish to a bare table. You’re bringing a dish to a table where you have to move a lot of other dishes to fit in, and that’s not true in a lot of other countries.”

And so begins a strange competition to make the best Bollywood film, pitting Hollywood against India’s own studios, which make more movies and sell more tickets than any film industry in the world.

With international revenues increasingly important to the conglomerates that own the major studios, Hollywood wants to tap into India’s market. But indigenous films captured 95 percent of Indian box office sales in 2006, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. The figure is identical for domestic pictures in the United States, but just 35 percent in France, 33 percent in Japan and 12 percent in Britain, according to 2005 data published by two scholars, David Waterman and Sang-Woo Lee.

“There is no country on the planet, other than India and the United States, that approaches that level of domestic business,” Andrew Cripps, the president of Paramount Pictures International, said by telephone from Los Angeles. And so Paramount, too, is contemplating Bollywood productions.

Still contemplating, it seems.

Meanwhile Adlabs/Reliance has conquered another territory with the announcement that it has acquired control of the third largest cinema chain in Malaysia. From THR.com's hard working India correspondent Nyay Bhushan:

Mumbai-based Adlabs Films, which runs India's largest theatrical chain along with holding interests in film production, said Monday it has acquired a majority stake in Malaysia's Lotus Five Star Cinemas.

"We cannot reveal financial details or the equity structure but, as a result of this deal, we have acquired a controlling stake in the company which runs 51 screens," Reliance Entertainment senior vp Anil Arjun said in an interview. Adlabs is part of Reliance.

Arjun added that the newly acquired screens -- which will make Adlabs the third largest chain in the country -- will continue to show a mix of market leader Hollywood product in addition to Malaysian- and Indian-language films.

Add this to the 150+ screens in India and 240+ screens in the US, plus some more South Asian territories coming up and this is starting to look like a cinema empire in the making. Some more analysis is offered by Patrick Frater in Variety:

Malaysia is one of the fastest growing theatrical markets in Asia but remains significantly underscreened. According to government agency FINAS, the country had just 341 screens in mid-2007.

Lotus mainly runs small cinemas outside the biggest cities and has itself been adding properties over the last year. In terms of screen numbers alone it ranks behind Golden Screen Cinemas and TGV, in which Hong Kong's Golden Harvest was invested until last year, and ahead of Singapore-owned Cathay Cineplexes.

Adlabs' move is not the first into Malaysia by an Indian exhibition group. Pyramid Saimira, which operates over 250 screens in India, unveiled a joint venture early last year with Malaysian company Asian Integrated Industries. Besides cinema ownership, that deal is intended to create a network of digital cinemas and provide them with distribution services.

No wonder that the parent company Reliance Big Entertainment is "in talks with private equity funds such as US-based private equity fund Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company (KKR), billionaire investor Carl Icahn, Japan’s Softbank and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority for divestment of 10% equity" for "an estimated asking value...in the range of $500 million," according to the Economic Times.

Reliance buys Lowry Digital Images from DTS

I'm absolutely chuffed to pieces that the news is finally official - my new employer Reliance ADAG has acquired DTS Digital Images, better known by its original name Lowry Digital Images.

This is an absolute gem of a company and I was blown away when I saw the work they had done when I visited their facility as part of the EDCF pre-ShoWest tour in March 2007 (see photo above). IMDB has a list of a small selection the films the company has worked on, while there is a dedicated page on Amazon of DVDs that feature work done by Lowry. You can read an (old) interview with John Lowry himself here or a more recent one by Debra Kaufman here.

In hindsight, it was an unfortunate mismatch of expectations when Lowry digital Images was acquired by DTS in 2005, but the new ownership fits perfectly into both what Reliance and Lowry want to achieve. From the press release:

DTS, Inc. today announced that the Company has completed the sale of its Digital Images business to Reliance Big Entertainment Ltd., a member of the Reliance ADA Group of India.

The sale, which closed on April 4 for approximately $7.5 million in cash, marks DTS' exit from the image enhancement and restoration services business.

As my new boss says:

"DTS Digital Images, also popularly known as Lowry Digital Images, enjoys a superb reputation as the premier film imaging and restoration facility. The company fits well with the Digital Services strategy of the Reliance ADA Group in the global media and entertainment space," said Anil Arjun, Senior Vice President of Reliance.

So far none of the Hollywood trades seem to have picked up on it. The best write up so far has come from India's DNA newspaper:

It’s body of work includes over 300 well-known feature films — Casablanca, Singing in the rain, Sunset Boulevard, Indiana Jones trilogy, Star Wars Trilogy, James Bond classics — with output to DVD, 35mm film, digital cinema and Imax.

Industry observers said that this acquisition would help Reliance Big Entertainment to cater to the rapidly growing 3D content market with technology solutions for correction in original stereoscopic footage as well as re-rendering of 2D footage into 3D.

DDI recently provided custom image processing services for New Line Cinema and Walden Media’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth 3D, the world’s first digitally captured stereoscopic live action film shot in digital 3D.

Details on the last job mentioned can be found in a press release here.

Too early to go into details about the company's future, just don't expect Lowry to suddenly become some cheap restoration outsourcing service provider. It will remain the Gold Standard of quality content work in Hollywood and will only grow as part of the Reliance film services family.

I'm now COO of Adlabs Digital Cinema

The cat was out of the bag at ShoWest already, but it's a nice coincidence that my 100th post on this in-frequent blog is the announcement that I've been appointed Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Adlabs Digital Cinema.

The news comes in a couple of articles that give details on Adlabs' expansion into the US cinema market.

From The Hollywood Reporter:

Adlabs Films has finalized the acquisition of 240 screens across 28 U.S. cities, executives said Tuesday on the sidelines of the FICCI Frames media conference.

"We have acquired these screens that largely have the potential to cater to South Asian and other audiences in the U.S.," Adlabs Films COO digital cinema Patrick von Sychowski said. "Some of these screens were acquired from the likes of Regal and Landmark, among others."

While financial details were not given, Mumbai-based Adlabs -- which operates more than 100 screens in India -- has partnered with Knoxville, Tenn.-based Phoenix Theatres for its expansion.

From Variety, quoting my boss:

Company, part of billionaire Anil Dhirubhai Ambani's Reliance ADAG conglom, has quietly bought up cinemas across the U.S. and is poised to launch next month as a coast-to-coast mini-chain.

"It is important we are seen as an independent American chain, rather than an extension of an Indian company," said Reliance Capital senior VP Anil Arjun.

Reliance, in which billionaire George Soros recently paid $100 million for a 5% stake, has 250 screens at 28 North American locations. These include sites in New York, New Jersey, Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago, San Jose, Los Angeles, Washington State and one at Union Station in Washington, D.C.

"We've been aggregating. We've bought long-term leases to small chains or mom-and-pop operations, not necessarily the best quality, but we are spending to improve that through things like improved A/C, sound systems and concessions," Arjun said. Total cost of the acquisitions and refurbishments was not revealed.

It is tremendously exciting and a privilege to be part of a company such as Adlabs/Reliance ADAG which has the vision, ability and financial clout to push through such massive initiatives. Expect to hear more from us in the future.

Reliance's motto, from the founder Dhirubhai Ambani is "Think big, think fast, think ahead. Ideas are no-one's monopoly." They certainly do, and I'm trying to as well.