If a movie is poorly written and acted, it won’t even work in its original language, as proven by the failure of recent releases such as Fantastic Four and Gods of Egypt in India.Īction movies, superhero spectacles and fantasy adventures featuring the singular ability of Hollywood to conjure up unseen worlds work best with Indian audiences. Of course, the success of a dubbed movie depends on the strength of the original narrative. “I got a lot of feedback from parents who went with their kids for the movie in Hindi and thoroughly enjoyed it.” “We didn’t stick to the script and made it as filmy as possible,” Lewis said. Eliza Lewis, who works closely with Warner Bros and whose most recent effort is Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, gave the example of the Ben Stiller comedy Night at the Museum (2006), which was released only in Hindi in India.
Sometimes, the nature of the film allows for creative liberties. “There is very little flexibility in terms of the content, obviously, but we do play with the Hindi dialect-for instance, instead of plain Hindi, we use a Punjabi accent or a generic South Indian one,” Samanta said. But efforts to localise American pop culture references and play with accents have reduced the gap between Hollywood and a country that sways to Bollywood. Many people who speak both English and Hindi prefer the Hindi version because the English accent is often difficult to follow.”ĭubbing producers cannot get too imaginative with the translated versions. “Once you get involved with the story, it doesn’t matter. “There is initially a disconnect between the language and the colour of the skin, but that wears off after a few minutes,” said Samanta, who has worked on several franchises, including Jurassic Park, Transformers, The Avengers, Iron Man, Mission: Impossible and James Bond. Indian versions of movies such as The Karate Kid, Furious 7 and Jurassic World were big hits. The comic book adaptation Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which opened on March 24, has been dubbed, as will be the upcoming Kung Fu Panda 3 (April 1), The Jungle Book (April 8), and Angry Birds (June 3).Īmerican movie studios want to expand their market in India in the same way that dubbing has conquered the lucrative Chinese territory.īesides, the absence of prominent names behind microphones has not prevented moviegoers from patronising Hollywood’s lavishly produced and visual effects-heavy extravaganzas in more familiar tongues.
There have been attempts at new languages, such as Bhojpuri for Spider-Man 3, Bengali for Jurassic World, and Malayalam for Exodus: Gods and Kings. A-list Hollywood releases, especially the franchises, are almost routinely released in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. In fact, Indian language versions can contribute between 40% and 45% of the domestic box office for such movies. The mini-industry that has sprung up around dubbed Hollywood in India has its own rules, brand names, and star system. That tackiness is now a thing of the past. “TV channels used their own dubbing artists at low costs and quality, and this created a bad impact on audiences and threw the market for dubbed films,” Samanta said. Dubbing producer Ashim Samanta, however, detests the coinage, and describes it as an example of the early amateurishness in rendering of Hollywood films in Indian languages.