Profile: Ronnie Screwvala

Ronnie Screwvala in his home. (Saritha Rai/GlobalPost)

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MUMBAI — In Bollywood-mad India — where more films are made and more movie tickets sold than anywhere else on the planet, where wild fans fling money as their idol appears on the movie screen and crazed groupies erect temples with their favorite movie stars as deities — Ronnie Screwvala is something of an anamoly.

He's also a huge hit.

Screwvala’s films do not star heroes with standard six-pack abs and unexplained costume changes. Nor do they dance wildly around trees or suddenly break into song.

They do not fight off the bad guys, or mouth melodramatic dialogues while rescuing the girl and/or a long-lost brother. They don't even weep copiously at the mother’s deathbed, or do all of the above, during the course of a three-and-a-half-hour, formulaic film.

Screwvala, a rank outsider with no film background or movie connections, is slowly reinventing Bollywood and, in the process, clawing his way to the top of the Bollywood power list.

For the last five years his company, UTV, has tamed the chaotic, prolific Bollywood film industry through smarter business practices, leading the way in corporatizing film-making, drawing foreign investors, bringing in fiscal discipline, choosing unique plots — and then aggressively marketing the films.

UTV has beaten family-led rivals like the Johars and the Kapoors to become India's second biggest studio after Yash Chopra’s YashRaj films.

“Ronnie represents the changing face of Bollywood,” says actor Priyanka Chopra, who played the lead in UTV’s 2008 hit "Fashion." She also stars in the company’s much-anticipated summer release "Kaminey" (lowly person).

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/india/090331/profile-ronnie-screwvala