Hollywood producer Ashok Amritraj has signed celebrity publicist Dale Bhagwagar's PR agency Dale Bhagwagar Media Group (DBMG) for his media works, and promotions of his company Hyde Park Entertainment along with its film projects.
As Chairman and CEO of Hyde Park Entertainment, Ashok Amritraj produced the box-office hits 'Bringing Down The House' (starring Steve Martin and Academy Award-nominee Queen Latifah), 'Premonition' (starring Sandra Bullock and Julian McMahon) and other smashes such as 'Shopgirl' , 'Dreamer', 'Moonlight Mile' and 'Raising Helen'. Hyde Park Entertainment has a first look deal with 20th Century Fox and a second look deal with The Walt Disney Studios.
Regarded as one of the most successful producers in Hollywood today, Ashok Amritraj, during his 25-year career has produced or executive produced over 90 films with a worldwide gross in excess of $1 billion; having worked with every major Studio in Hollywood. Other stars who have worked with Amritraj include Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, Angelina Jolie, Cate Blanchett, Dustin Hoffman, Antonio Banderas, Kate Hudson and Kurt Russell.
"It would be a pleasure for anyone from Bollywood to be associated with Ashok Amritraj," says Dale Bhagwagar, and adds, "On an average, Mr Amritraj produces 3-4 international films every year. Bollywood can easily call him 'our man in Hollywood'. He's not only the biggest Indian producer abroad, but one of the top fifteen filmmakers in the United States of America. Above all, he is one of the most admirable and inspiring persons I've met."
Dale's PR agency has already begun work on two of Amritraj's projects. The first one is called 'The Other End of the Line' and stars Jesse Metcalfe (of 'Desperate Housewives' fame), Shriya Saran (of 'Sivaji' fame), Anupam Kher, Sara Foster and Larry Miller. It is directed by James 'Jimmy' Dodson (of 'Behind Enemy Lines II: Axis of Evil' fame). A cross-cultural romantic comedy, it will be released by MGM in association with Adlabs.
The other film is 'Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li' (directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak of 'Romeo Must Die' fame). Based on the extremely popular video game, this one would be released by 20th Century Fox.
After these, going into production this year is 'The Persuaders' , based on the hit British TV series.
Dale Bhagwagar Media Group and its division Right Publicity, which completed a decade in PR last month, has been associated with the imaging of Hrithik Roshan, Shilpa Shetty, Shamita Shetty, Mashhoor Amrohi , Sameera Reddy, Shiney Ahuja, Sherlyn Chopra, Esha Deol, Bhairavi Goswami, Upen Patel, Arbaaz Khan, Nadeem-Shravan, Nandana Sen, Manoj Bajpai, Chunky Panday, Shekhar Suman, Anaida, Anup Jalota, Pankaj Udhas and Daler Mehndi. It has also handled the imaging for Miss World's Priyanka Chopra and Diana Hayden and Miss India's Pooja Batra and Nikita Anand.
The agency has been instrumental in publicizing films of acclaimed filmmakers such as Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar, Vikram Bhatt, Kaizad Gustad, Ayesha Shroff, Akbar Khan, David Dhawan, Kundan Shah, Reema Kagti, N.Chandra, Vinta Nanda, Raman Kumar, Manoj Agarwal, Viveck Vaswani, Jatin Kumar, Mahesh Manjrekar, Padam Kumar, Hriday Shetty and Sanjay Gupta. DBMG has even handled the media works of leading corporates like Tips Industries Limited, Nimbus Creative Corporation Limited, Ultra Group, Kamaal Amrohi Pictures , In House Productions and Tata Infomedia Limited.
Earlier on, Dale's firm has been instrumental with quite a few other projects with international associations. It was launched along with an Indian Navy event on the decommissioned historical aircraft-carrier INS Vikrant which was instrumental in giving India an edge over Pakistan in the 1971 war. One of the agency's current clients Shilpa Shetty is now a household name and an icon in UK. It has also handled the works of Bollywood Group of Companies (USA) and Indo American Society , and is tipped to be joining the PR team of Uru Patel's international film 'Hanuman'.
DBMG is now looking forward to expand its network abroad. After strategically placing media reps in Delhi, Chandigarh, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Nagpur and Indore, it has now appointed media reps in London, Colorado and New York.
As a leading celebrity publicist and spokesperson, Dale Bhagwagar has been quoted in every prominent newspaper and television channel in India and also in various media abroad including Sky News, BBC World, BBC Radio, CNN, Channel 4, Voice of America, New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, The Times, Guardian, The Independent, The Mail, Daily Mail, Mirror, Daily Star, The People and Marie Claire; all these being publications of the UK and USA. He has also been quoted in the The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), Gulf News (Dubai), Dawn and Jung (Pakistan), VN Express (Vietnam), International Herald Tribune (France) and Pravda (Russia) amongst many others.
Inspite of all this, Dale does not visualize a complete transition for DBMG to international projects. "I will never leave my roots. Mumbai is my headquarters and will remain so. If I have my way, I'd like to keep a 60-40 mix. Sixty percent of Bollywood projects, and forty percent of international work. I might do foreign projects but I will never stop handling the branding for Indian films and Bollywood actors. I eat, sleep, walk, talk Bollywood. I'm proud to be working with the best and I'll never leave this for anything in the world," says the publicist.