Hollywood taps Bollywood stars to lure Indian audience Amitabh Bachchan, India's most celebrated movie star, makes his debut appearance in a Hollywood feature this year, playing underworld businessman Meyer Wolfsheim in Baz Luhrmann's glittering adaptation of The Great Gatsby. But while the casting of their nation's most prominent film icon has attracted attention from fans in his home country, the move is also part of a wider strategy in which US studios are attempting to adapt their offerings to suit the tastes of audiences in fast-growing emerging markets. China is typically the main target - as a series of major western films has either cast Chinese characters or featured Chinese locations, including Disney's recently released Iron Man 3. But the same approach is being used to woo Indian audiences too, for instance with the appearance of popular Bollywood star Anil Kapoor in the most recent fourth instalment of the Mission Impossible film franchise. Hollywood films face unusually stiff competition in India's vibrant film market, and US studios are using other approaches to win over sceptical audiences. Iron Man 3 has performed well in India since its release last week - in part because its promoters decided to dub the film not just into Hindi, but also Telugu and Tamil, two widely spoken south Indian languages. Bigger marketing campaigns help too, as do early release dates: some Hollywood movies now open in India well before they reach screens in the US or Europe - although this is partly designed to counter the nation's rampant piracy problems. "When the US studios entered India, they basically realised that this is not a market which is going to be dominated by international content," says Smit Jha, head of entertainment and media at PwC India. But there is still a growing urban, multiplex audience which likes movies in English, so it is not entirely a lost cause.