ALL OF TO HOLLYWOOD
Will Hrithik & Co Make It Big?

Abhishek Mande checks out how Bollywood stars are now heading the Hollywood way........

Raveena Tandon is now bound for Hollywood. She will act in a film called Panic, which will also star two other Indians. The rest of the cast is from Hollywood. The Tandon babe is certainly not the first one to go so. Of late, the exodus has been on a high.

Even Madhavan aka Maddy of Mani Rathnam's Alaipayuthey fame has gone West in a small film. But Raveena's film isn't one of those small budget flicks.

The prestigious New Line Pictures will produce her film, ensuring that this is no B-grade flick.

Hrithik Roshan's film deal in Hollywood too is underway. He is negotiating between three companies as to which film he wants to sign. The best one is for the Net, though. A $20 million offer opposite Kate Titanic Winslett. Sounds good enough.

Meanwhile sensuous Diana Hayden, the former Miss World has also signed on a deal with Miramax Studios and will star in a film in all probability opposite Bruce Willis. It is not known whether Manoj Night Shyamalan is directing the film.

Kabir Bedi, Persis Khambatta and Om Puri are three big Indian names who have successful gone abroad and done some good work. Villain Gulshan Grover too in recent times has been seen a lot in Hollywood. While Puri has been playing only Indian roles, Bedi and Khambatta have bagged other roles due to the language, accent and the fair skin. While Bedi starred in the epochal Sandokan, Grover starred in Jungle Book II, Monsoon and Rose and Marguerite among other films.

Former Miss India in 1965, Persis Khambatta starred in Star Trek - The Motion Picture.

Om Puri starred in Wolf, Brothers in Trouble, My Son the Fanatic Ghost and the Darkness, British films East is East, Parole Officer among others.

Shabana Azmi made it Hollywood too. As the babysitter in Pamela Rooks' Miss Beatty's Children and a guest role in Son of the Pink Panther.

And Amrish Puri has been the only Indian to have made it to Spielberg. Puri worked in Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom as a vile Indian monk.

Ripples Entertainment, is one company formed by Sudesh Iyer and Rajesh Bhatia which has now taken India abroad. Believe it or not, they have raised funds to make a huge international film starring one Indian and the rest of the cast will be from Hollywood. Priyadarshan will be directing the film. That makes Priyan into an international maker too.

But the news is also that this film by Ripples will be Priyan's second phoren venture as he is being signed by Columbia Tristar to make a film, which in all likelyhood is to star Abhishek Bachchan and Sunil Shetty among others.

Which means that Priyadarshan will take these two to Hollywood as well.

Gautam Ghose too is casting Tom Cruise in his next film on Dara Shukoh, if things work out well.

Ghose who has made films like Paar and Gudia before, is casting Cruise in the role of Nikalai Mannuci, an explorer who also happens to be a friend of Shukoh. In case you are not aware, Shukoh is the younger brother of Mughal emperor Aurangazeb. But how many of these stars will go ahead and get International recognition?

Indian tennis star Vijay Amritraj also acted in Octupussy. His brother Ashok Amritraj makes many B-grade Hollywood films too, but Indians have not done a great job out there, good enough to reflect on the pay cheque.

Going by the market predictions, the Hrithik film is said to garner a lot of interest particularly among the huge Indian expatriate population in the US and UK. Hrithik's market is better than many actors abroad.

The Raveena film too is expected to get good response depending on who her co-stars would be.

But Diana Hayden is expected to look more like bimbette signed on only to expose her gorgeous figure. Hayden does not know the hidden clause. But then, does this movement herald the onset of Indian stars to Hollywood in a big way?

Only time can tell.

WRITTEN BY ABHISHEK MANDE