Each year, more movies are produced in India, where the moving image industry is referred to
as Bollywood, than in Hollywood. About 1000 movies are released annually in India, about
twice the output of Hollywood. The "B" in Bollywood refers to Bombay (renamed Mumbai).
Bollywood movies often are quite long 3 hours or more of dancing and singing around love as
the main plot - although kissing is almost never shown on screen. Everyday, some 14 million
Indian people queue for a movie, with more than 4 billion movie tickets sold annually, compared to 3 billion for Hollywood movies worldwide.
According to the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), in 1996 the average Hollywood
film cost $35.3 million to make and another $17.7 million to market.
The most expensive film ever made as at year 2000, was James Cameron's "Titanic." It cost
$200 million, but also was the most successful, in the sense that it won 11 Academy Awards equalling "Ben Hur" of 1959.
The top five moneymaking films of all time are: "Titanic" [$1,835m], Jurassic Park" [$920m],
Independence Day" [$810m], "Star Wars" [$780m], "The Lion King" [$767m]. Notice that they
all are family-type movies. In fact, movies with strong sexual or violence content usually
bomb at the box office. According to the American Family Association, the average cost to
produce a movie in 1996 was $40 million. Sex films grossed on average only $700 000. Movies
with strong Christian or family content each grossed over $37 million.
The biggest movie promotion deal is the $2 billion agreement between George Lucas - the
director of the "Star Wars" trilogy - and Pepsi for exclusive worldwide use of the film's
characters.
