BREAKING : बड़ा USD 8.5 BILLION GLOBAL "DATAWOOD" FOUNDED BY MARRIAGE OF FILM+ AI
Disney and Reliance (India) [MTV TOO] Founds Digital Film/Media AI Global Capitol
AI COUNSEL REPORTING DETAILS WITH ANALYSIS HERE FIRST — YOU WILL FIND LATER ELSEWHERE - EXPERIENCE + TRENDLINES
USD 240B Reliance + USD 164B Disney + AI Future = WOW
“Datawood” (Data Hollywood), as I call it, has been established worldwide today.
I will admit that a lot of this is personal. And professional. I’m excited!
Since the time I was nearly thrown off the set of Mrs. Doubtfire and arrested, to turning down the job to be Christian Slater’s stand-in because I was going to Ireland (1994), to the times I have assisted as counsel to Oscar-winning companies with their corporate and investment affairs…
Till the years I spent as employee #1 2004-2012 to one of the leading early investment companies in Indian FDI………
I was in love with film and media and also had a sense that India would make the new Hollywood, and now with AI it is happening and happening very VERY big.
बड़ा (baḍā)
USD 8.5B DEAL ANNOUNCED TODAY BETWEEN DISNEY + RELIANCE INDUSTRIES INDIA
[Big “Side story” details to come….Viacom18, which interestingly was founded by none other than MTV NETWORKS (that one) European division, will be the largest stakeholder in the new undertaking.]
[Paging BRIAN ROEMMELE (was just talking about you) Will the MTV back catalogue now go into an AI Future to return again in our streaming content, enhanced?]
In March 2023 Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance industries (India), announced the establishment of BharatGPT a leading LLM for the (larger than USA) Indian and Asia markets - and featuring SPEECH-TO-TEXT from the beginning (remember, OAI is still working on it, announced in May).
This is but one project of Reliance and Ambani has stated that 2024 will be the “AI Transformation” year for the USD 240B powerhouse Indian company.
[In June Reliance was the first Indian company valued at Rs 21,18,951.20 crore]
It was 2018 that Reliance partnered with Embibe, an AI-education provider
Sept 2023 Reliance announced a partnership with NVIDIA to develop India's own foundation large language model
So the scope, cost, capital and potential are huge. The film/tv is only a portion.
When all is said and done this partnership [as AI deployment expands and also begins to service other market and other players] will not be valued at 8.5b but likely USD 1T in less than 10 years.
At the same time, DISNEY. A MOVIE BUSINESS ICON which has launched 27 films which grossed over 1B globally (did I say, globally) and most of them “cartoons”
Disney's acquisition of other major studios, such as Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm, has expanded its influence and reach in various genres
Disney has been at the forefront of technological advancements in animation and filmmaking, consistently pushing the boundaries of what is possible in the industry.
Disney's global distribution network allows its films to reach audiences worldwide, further enhancing its leadership position in the industry.
I’m calling this THE establishment of a worldwide, global, #DataWood — a new industry which will use AI technology to produce more inexpensively massively successful film projects for GLOBAL markets……….with AI leveraged creating huge new arbitrages in the cost-versus-revenue filmmaking ratio meaning
AI now has a home in the film business and a great great deal of capital.
This new venture is the largest projected filmmaking entity the world has ever seen.
It also includes TELEVISION which of course extends beyond your cable and television sets to STREAMING companies and services, transforming streamed content also.
This is no content-streaming deal but a true partnership meaning, the AI Infrastructure of Reliance WILL COMBINE with the film/media-making expertise of Disney to create heretofore unknown many creations…
AI development will be safe, secure, and economically robust and this will carry over to many other industries.
To close, here is a list of data points from Perplexity.ai and WOW!
The Disney-Reliance deal is a significant merger in the Indian media and entertainment industry.
Joint Venture Structure:
Viacom18 (backed by Reliance) and Disney's Star India will merge their TV and streaming assets.
The joint venture is valued at ₹70,352 crore (~$8.5 billion).
Ownership:
Reliance Industries Limited (RIL): 16.34%
Viacom18: 46.82%
Disney: 36.84%
Investment:
RIL will invest ₹11,500 crore (~$1.4 billion) for growth strategies.
Leadership:
Nita M. Ambani will be the Chairperson.
Uday Shankar will serve as Vice Chairperson.
Content and Assets:
Combines entertainment assets (e.g., Colors, StarPlus) and sports content (e.g., Star Sports, Sports18).
Includes streaming platforms JioCinema and Hotstar.
Disney grants exclusive rights to distribute its films and productions in India.
Access to over 30,000 Disney content assets.
Market Reach:
Over 750 million viewers across India.
Will cater to the Indian diaspora globally.
Strategic Goals:
Lead digital transformation in Indian media and entertainment. (-AIC this means DIGITALLY PRODUCED CONTENT, I.E. AI)
Offer high-quality content across entertainment and sports.
Provide affordable digital entertainment experiences.
Timeline:
Expected to complete in late 2024 or early 2025, subject to regulatory approvals.
This merger creates a dominant player in the Indian streaming market, potentially challenging global competitors like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video
(-AIC also it will create the largest powerhouse AI digital PROFESSIONAL content production entity the world has ever seen)
*all images created with the incomparable xAI’s Grok 2 mini.
Variety came out a day later beginning to say some of these things and Mukesh ringing the bell, its an exceptionally exciting global AI future.