Hollywood is on a red-hot streak in India this year. And that?s been scalding Bollywood pretty severely. It isn?t only big-ticket films like Spider-Man 3, Casino Royale, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World?s End and, now, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix that have struck gold. Less fancied Hollywood releases like Perfect Stranger and Pursuit of Happyness, and even a Chinese film, The Curse of the Golden Flower (directed by Zhang Yimou), have also found takers. Seven months into the year, it is pretty obvious that this will be Hollywood?s biggest year ever in the subcontinent.

For years, we were told that, in the domestic Indian market, Hollywood was no competition for Bollywood films. That was true. It is still true. Given the predilections of the local audiences, Bollywood will continue to enjoy a sizeable lead over Hollywood in the foreseeable future, but the Mumbai movie industry cannot ignore the danger signs that have emerged this year.

Over the past year, Hollywood has been steadily strengthening its grip on the Indian domestic market. With Spider-Man 3, which had nearly 600 prints in circulation, outstripping Titanic as the biggest grosser in the Indian market by a fair distance, the equations have changed appreciably. Titanic had grossed Rs 55 crore, whereas Spider-Man 3 did business of nearly Rs 65 crore.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the American studios are now better poised than at any other point in their history of growth in India to consistently break into double figures in terms of percentage share of the local market revenue. That increase would be of immense significance, given the sheer size of the market that they are dealing with.

It is a well-established fact that the biggest commercial success story in India this year isn?t a Bollywood flick, or even the Rajnikanth starrer, Sivaji: the Boss. It is Spider-Man 3. And given the way the fifth movie instalment of the Harry Potter franchise is going, it could end up setting a few records of its own. Sony Pictures, Warner Bros and Disney Films have been having a great time in India of late even as locally produced films have been taking repeated knocks at the box office.

For the second year running and for the fourth year since it set up shop in India, Sony Pictures Releasing has crossed the Rs 1 billion mark by way of box office collection. What is significant is that while the company had done a business of approximately Rs 1.20 billion in 2006, it has crossed that mark in only seven months in 2007.

And this before Sony?s first India production, Sanjay Leela Bhansali?s Saawariya, opens. The film?s release date is set for November and it is expected to change the company?s approach to the Indian market, both in the short term and in the long run. If Saawariya clicks commercially, other Hollywood majors will understandably feel enthused to firm up their plans to enter the Indian production sector. The competition for the big Bollywood banners is only going to hot up in the years ahead.

The Hollywood growth story in India has been an

all-round phenomenon. The year 2007 is likely to see

the release of nearly 90 Hollywood films in the multiplexes, and that number is significantly higher than that in any other year in history. Only halfway to that projected final tally, the US studios have made a handsome killing.

Good for them. Whatever they make from this point onwards will be a bonus.

But unless the key Bollywood players, who have been for a while focusing on their much publicised global forays and tie-ups with major Hollywood entities (which by themselves are great strategies to pursue), realise exactly what they are up against, they?d only be inviting trouble. Big trouble. What they are up against are well-oiled production machines that are capable of churning out internationally saleable blockbusters with unfailing regularity.

To compete with these Hollywood studios, Bollywood will have to begin delivering consistent quality, not just in terms of technique and star power, but also in terms of pure narrative ideas.

Gone are the days when vacuous love stories, pulpy NRI romances and laboured comedies would work and help Bollywood producers fill up their coffers. A few will still get through, but peddling mindless kitsch as a long-term strategy will have to be jettisoned for good.

That?s because it would no longer be enough for Bollywood films to target domestic audiences alone as Hollywood continues to strengthen its grip on the local market. The Mumbai industry will have to look outwards and that would place an instant demand on filmmakers here to stop ripping off narrative and technical ideas. Originality of substance and execution is what will attract eyeballs globally.

So that?s the positive spin-off of the inroads being made by Hollywood. That is not to say that everything that Hollywood dumps on us is great, but everything it does is driven by a sense of global viability. Bollywood, secure all these years in the belief that Hollywood will always be a relatively small player on the domestic scene, will now have to review its stand and stop taking its audience, local and global, for granted.

Thank Spider-Man 3 for that.