The business tycoon is gearing up to produce 100 Indian films in two years with 'creative inputs' from AMITABH BACHCHAN, find out SOUMYADIPTA BANERJEE and PRITHWISH GANGULY

Move over Bollywood big banners that are busy inking multi-film and multi-crore deals in a single contract. The baap of all banners has arrived.

In what is being touted as the biggest-ever announcement by any single production house in Bollywood and what seems to be an inevitable extension of Anil Ambani and Amitabh Bachchan’s long-standing friendship, Reliance Big Entertainment (RBE) has plans to make 100 Indian films within the next two years.

RBE — the movie production arm of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADA) — is currently producing 70 Indian movies with a total estimated investment of around Rs 200 crore. What’s more? Amitabh Bachchan’s AB Corp is reportedly playing a pivotal role in ‘providing the creative inputs’ to these movies. This basically seems to imply that while Anil will be providing all the cash, the Big B will vet the scripts, the actors and the directors.

The Rs 1,000 - 1,500 crore deal that Anil has inked with the Bachchans will also reportedly see the two companies team up for television series, reality shows, internet and mobile content and live shows, besides film production.

“Our objective is not only to produce entertaining movies, but also to create converged services and platforms for masses to access innovative, cutting-edge content,” RBE chairman Amit Khanna was quoted as saying.

There’s good news for the regional films as well, as a lot of regional movies are also included in the list of the 100 movies that RBE will also be producing.

Besides these, RBE is also directly producing around 29 movies – 15 in Hindi, two
each in Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam, seven in Bengali, and one each in Telugu, Punjabi, Gujarati and Marathi.

The company has already signed directors like Shyam Benegal, Madhur Bhandarkar, Vivek Agnihotri, Sangeeth Sivan, Priyadarshan, Rituparno Ghosh, Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Sandip Ray, Shaji Karun, Girish Kasaravalli, MS Sathyu and Amol Palekar on its rolls.

Some RBE-funded Indian movies that are set to release are Vipul Shah’s Singh is Kinng. The prominent Bollywood production houses which have joined hands with RBE are Vinod Chopra Films, Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar’s Excel Entertainment, Vashu Bhagnani’s Puja Films, Maruti International of Ashok Thakeria and Indra Kumar, and Sudhir Mishra’s Orion Pictures.