Hollywood, Meet Bollywood

There was a big to-do on the Paramount Pictures lot yesterday involving LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Paramount Pictures Chairman and CEO Brad Grey, California Film Commissioner Amy Lemisch and Indian producers Bobby Bedi and L. Suresh.

As part of a city declaration, it was agreed that efforts will be made to create something called the Los Angeles-India Film Council to nurture more Southern California shoots for Bollywood film and TV projects. Recent large-budget Indian productions filmed locally include My Name is Khan (2010), Kites (2010) and Kambakkht Ishq (2009). (Yes, Bollyood is friendly with the letter “K”.)

Earlier this year, a similar handshake deal was struck in Mumbai to address the pressing issue of piracy. The newly created Alliance Against Copyright Theft aims to coordinate the two leading film industries’ efforts against street corner discount DVDs.

Perhaps, as a first sign of goodwill, this latest agreement can extend to a renaming of Paramount’s M:I:4. Instead of the horrible, recently announced chapter title of Ghost Protocol, how about something more K-riffic, like Kolkata Chaos?

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