Los Angeles - Bollywood is taking over Hollywood - or at least an important part of it. India's Reliance ADA Group is close to a 500-to-600-million-dollar deal to be the principal backer of Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg's Dreamworks Pictures, which is set to split from Paramount at the end of the year, according to the Wall Street Journal Wednesday.
The report said that the Indian-backed studio would then seek an additional 500 million dollars in debt financing to enable it to produce five to six movies a year, making it the biggest independent studio in the world's film capital.
The report said that Reliance was a good fit for Spielberg's wider ambitions with its interests in the film world as well as holdings in energy, telecommunications, financial services and healthcare.
Reliance signaled its intentions to carve out a space in Hollywood last month when it signed development deals with some of the film world's biggest stars like George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Nicolas Cage and Tom Hanks.
Reliance also announced in Cannes that it would invest 1 billion dollars in the film business over the next 18 months and recently assembled a chain of 220 cinema screens for exhibition at 28 locations across the US.
