MUMBAI: Reliance Big Entertainment (RBE) has got into bed with Pretty Woman Julia Roberts and Rush Hour and X-Men 3 director Brett Ratner's Rat Entertainment. The company made this announcement at the European Film Market in Berlin on 6 February.

Last year, on a visit to the Cannes Film Festival, Reliance ADAG group announced seven separate deals with Hollywood production houses run by top bracket actors, including Nicolas Cage, Jim Carrey, George Clooney, Chris Columbus, Tom Hanks, Brad Pitt and Jay Roach.

At a time when the world is rocking courtesy the recession, RBE, the media and entertainment arm of the Reliance ADAG group, has once signalled the seriousness of its intent to make a dent in Hollywood by inking development deals with Julia Roberts' Red Om Films and with Brett Ratner's Rat Entertainment.

According to a company statement, the nine deals (including the latest two) provide for the creation of a development silo for each of the production entities and it's possible that RBE could choose to co-finance any of them. The Indian megacorp will also retain Indian rights to the films it co-finances and hopes to attract some productions to shoot in India.

Some of these partnerships have already started bearing fruit: a slate of more than 20 projects are currently in development from eight of them and Reliance executives say they expect the first few projects to go into production before the end of the year. Says RBE chairman Amit Khanna, "Our foray into Hollywood has proven very productive on the development front, and we are now looking forward to moving into the filmmaking stage over the coming months." He added that the company will make some detailed announcements at the Cannes Film festival later this year.

Creative Artists Agency (CAA), which is advising RBE on its Hollywood strategy, was involved in brokering the deals.

Last September, RBE had pledged to invest up to $550 million in equity wherein DreamWorks was expected to match that amount in debt raised through its bankers at J.P. Morgan. However, post the ongoing global meltdown story that figure has now been brought down to $325 million. It also announced that it had acquired Dreamworks' slate of 17 development projects from Paramount.