With the results of the Diwali and Eid releases out, it?s the turn of the Thanksgiving box-office weekend in the US, which hasn?t augured well for Bollywood. From Hollywood, Disney usually owns Thanksgiving and this year?s been no different. They?ve done a repeat with the princess tale Enchanted, which worked magic grossing an estimated $50 million from 3,730 runs, one of the best openings for the five-day stretch.

The week of Christmas and the week of Eid preceding it, will see the Johnny Depp-starrer Sweeney Todd, the Gerard Butler-starrer PS, I Love You and the Nicholas Cage-starrer National Treasure: Book Of Secrets, to name only a few. Bollywood buffs will be treated to Welcome, yet another mega canvas commercial comedy featuring Akshay Kumar, the most dependable star of 2007. Other than Akshay, the title features a posse of other stars comprising Anil Kapoor, Nana Patekar, Mallika Sherawat and Paresh Rawal.

Sweating it out with Welcome will be Aamir Khan?s maiden directorial venture, Taare Zameen Par, unconventional, sensitive and appealing to a niche audience.

The two confirmed festival releases will hopefully bring anotherwise tepid 2007 for Bollywood to an eventful close!

Copying DVDs legally

Movie studios, recognising that strict DRM on DVDs helps make piracy and illegal downloading attractive for consumers, are rolling out schemes to let users copy their DVDs on to multiple devices, including PCs and handheld devices. New offerings from Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Brothers will trial DVD copying, though only on a limited basis. Fox?s new Digital Copy technology is being offered for the Live Free or Die Hard Collector?s Edition only, while Warner?s system will apply only to the upcoming release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

The new offerings will make life easier for those who do things the legitimate way, but what remains to be seen is whether people who illegally download movies or who know how to rip a DVD onto their computer will alter their habits.

3D films

3D is being tipped off by the media to be the next big thing in cinema. The recently released Beowulf becoming an unlikely box-office smash is a case in point. At the BFI Imax, which has an enormous amount of experience in showing 3D films, in London it took ?60,000 in its opening weekend. The film was playing at 83 Imax venues in the US and accounted for 13% of Beowulf?s business on just 1% of the screens. Time to think?

Sharing ideas

In an interesting development, London and Mumbai have solidified the relationship between their film production industries by signing a city-to-city agreement. Signed by Film London and the Film and Television Producers Guild of India, the agreement sees the two cities pledge to ?share ideas and best practice on domestic and international film production and promotion?. Let?s see what becomes of this.

?The author is head of UK & Europe?International Motion Pictures?at Studio 18. He may be reached at garg.tan@gmail.com