Hollywood has Not Really Tapped Indian Market: Oscar-Nominated Producer

Academy Award nominated-producer David Womark sees India as a huge market but feels that Hollywood is yet to tap it. The American producer had backed the Oscar-winning 2012 film “Life of Pi” that starred Indian talents like Irrfan Khan and Adil Hussain. “While ‘Life of Pi’ is an international film, if you look at the box office collection...the majority of the box office collection internationally, came from Asia. Hollywood has not really tapped the Indian market. It doesn’t make films that cater to this market,” Womark said in a telephonic interview from Mumbai.

While shooting for Life of Pi in India, he fell in love with the country’s culture as well as the way stories are told on the big screen. “There is a different way of storytelling in Indian cinema. I got to watch a lot of Indian films and I fell in love with the independent Indian cinema... the quality cinema,” he said.

He is back to the country for the promotion of “Love Sonia”, based on child trafficking. “I met Tabrez Noorani (the film’s director) during ‘Life of Pi’. It was a three-year journey. I met Tabrez at the beginning of the film and by the end of the film, he gave me the script that he had been working on for seven or eight years. I read it and I was interested in it. Tabrez and I spent a year developing it,” recalled Womark.

The presence of Womark, actress Demi Moore and filmmaker-actor Mark Duplass in the film has given it an international appeal. Will the international audience be interested in the project that was lauded at film festivals in London and Melbourne?

“I think everybody will be interested in a movie like this, but we are essentially a foreign film. When you look at the business today, that’s how Hollywood looks at these films which in my opinion...we are in the process of transformation where there will no longer be foreign and domestic films because all the films now play everywhere, thanks to streaming sites,” he said. “So ultimately, the format isn’t important. It’s the reach. The reach is international now. Period. So, even though Hollywood still categorizes these films as foreign films, I don’t think it matters anymore,” he added. (IANS)