Friday, September 05, 2008

Star TV joins race for Robot

Eros International and Star TV have entered in to a multi-film content licensing deal.
The deal paves way for Star TV to select from the 1900 films that are owned by the Eros International
. Eros International has also announced with Sony Entertainment Television and Sahara Television in future.
It is already known that the company, planning to expand its business further,
is venturing into producing Tamil films and will begin with Rajinikanth starrer Robot (Endhiran), directed by Shankar.


Sameer Rao, Senior Vice-President, Strategic Planning & Commercial, Star India Pvt. Ltd said,
"It gives us immense pleasure to associate ourselves with a globally acclaimed studio of Hindi Cinema,
Eros International. For us it's a commencement of a long lasting relationship which we would like to
extend with the licensing of many more blockbusters going forward."

Pranab Kapadia, President – Distribution, Eros International, said,
"This is just the beginning of a great relationship between Eros and Star,
which are both leading players in the Indian entertainment domain.
We look forward to working together more closely.
According to PWC, the television sector in India is growing at over 22% CAGR and is
slated to be worth over US$15 billion by 2012. With over 50% of programming content of Indian television networks
being film based, Eros expects to see significant growth in TV syndication."

Jeyam Ravi rubs shoulders with Hollywood stars

It was reported earlier that director Jananathan is planning to rope in Hollywood
actors for the Jeyam Ravi starrer Peraanmai. The director, along with his crew,
has flown down to the US for the selection process. Sources reveal that Jananathan
is expected to bring in five starlets from the Hollywood after the auditioning test at the
studio in the US in which many are likely to participate.
Jeyam Ravi plays the lead role in the film in which he dons the forest officer role.

Shahrukh up in arms against Robot


Shahrukh Khan had initially planned to produce and act in Shankar’s Robot.
But this plan did not take off and the offer finally landed on superstar Rajinikanth.
With the film being made in Tamil, the director decided to opt for a name change to get the tax sops
announced by the Tamil Nadu government for films with Tamil names. It is now believed that Robot will
be rechristened Yenthram. Meanwhile, Shahrukh’s production house Red Chilies has created a stir
in the film industry by registering about nine names that have the word Robot in it.
Director Shankar had plans to simultaneously make it in Hindi because Ashwarya Rai-Bachchan plays
the female lead. With Shah Rukh’s title registering act Robot in Hindi could suffer a major blow.
Wonder what the star is up to!

Rajini’s next film is titled Yenthram!


Rajinikanth’s next film has been titled Yenthram! According to reliable sources in the industry,
director Shankar and Rajini opted for this new title, instead of Robot,
to get the tax sops announced by the Tamil Nadu government for films titled in Tamil.
Yenthram’s make up test was conducted in the United States and the Superstar along with the
crew participated in it last month. The latest buzz is that Rajini will fly down to the
US on September 5th to take part in the shooting of Yenthram that is slated to begin on September 7th.
Yenthram is a mega budget project that will be produced by Ayngaran International.
Ashwarya Rai-Bachchan shares the screen space with Rajinikanth for the first time.