US streaming giant Amazon Prime Video will co-produce its first Bollywood film this year, even banking on India's highest-paid actor Akshay Kumar as headliner in hopes of gaining audiences. from the vast and coveted Indian market.
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Ram Setu
, an action-adventure film in Hindi, will be released in theaters ahead of its streaming launch, Amazon said in a statement, without specifying its release date.
The title refers to the Tamil name of the Adam's Bridge, this long sandbar that connects the southeast coast of India to the northwest of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean.
According to the Hindu mythological epic Ramayana, this natural passage would have been built by an army of warrior monkeys to help the Hindu god Ram to get to Sri Lanka.
"
I look forward to telling the story of an important part of Indian heritage, especially to young people,
" said Akshay Kumar, the highest paid Indian actor in the world, according to the Forbes ranking in 2020.
Streaming services have grown in popularity due to the Covid-19 pandemic, as movie-loving Indians turned to apps for entertainment, with theaters being closed for more than six months a year. latest.
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Amazon, which already invests a lot in India in particular within the framework of its main activity of electronic commerce, was forced after the diffusion of its Indian political series
Tandav
to "
make changes
" there after complaints of politicians of the BJP, nationalist party ruling Hindu.
They had judged that the Hindu gods were mocked there.
The entire production had previously had to apologize, after being warned by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting that "
a large number of complaints and petitions (...)
" were pouring in against the series.
Major streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon and Disney's Hotstar have increased their presence in the country of 1.3 billion people, notably by commissioning the production of local content with Bollywood celebrities.
Streaming services are not subject to censorship commissions, notorious for their frequent cuts to programming.
But more and more requests, notably from members of the BJP, demand that these services be subject to the same control.
And under controversial new guidelines, announced last month, streaming platforms will soon be forced to remove content deemed objectionable 36 hours after a complaint is made.
