Kylie does Bollywood: Stars go east to beat the Hollywood crunch

Kylie's done it. So has Will Smith. Sylvester Stone too. Bankable stars from the west have found lucrative work in these hard times in the largest film factory in the world - Bollywood. Despite the downturn, the Australian singer Kylie Minogue, who has picked up some handsomely rewarded work in recent months, was paid more than £100,000 a day for a week's work in Mumbai for an Indian movie, Blue. Kylie's appearance is believed to be limited to a nightclub scene where she belts out a dance number. Despite her small role the singer has created big headlines, with papers running stories about her catching rickshaws and apparently snubbing Bollywood royalty. Blue, which stars some of Indian cinema's hottest names and will cost £20m to make, is being touted as a Caribbean action movie that apparently draws inspiration from the novels of Peter Benchley, who wrote Jaws. The film is also seen as part of a trend in which Indian studios hire western actors as an acknowledgement of the cachet of pop culture. Analysts say that it also reflects the growing importance of the Indian film market - and the fact that many Hollywood production companies are keen to find new ways to cut costs. It is also hard to ignore the Slumdog Millionaire effect - the amazing success of the movie set in the slums of Mumbai proved that stories using the Indian landscape could be retailed to global audiences. Gracing the silver screen next in a Hindi movie will be Rocky star Stallone, who is believed to have been paid £350,000 for his role in Kambakht Ishq, whose title loosely translates as Incredible Love. Starring India's current favourite on-screen couple, Ashkay Kumar and Kareena Kapoor, the movie is the first Bollywood production to be shot in Hollywood. It tells the story of an Indian stuntman who takes America by storm but can't find true love. "I think [Bollywood] stars want to be known internationally. They want global audiences and exposure. They want to walk the red carpet at the Oscars so they hire Hollywood names or big name singers," said Bharti Pradhan, editor of Mumbai's Moviemag international. "It's about widening their audience". Perhaps the most incongruous outing was when the rapper Snoop Dogg, the man dubbed "America's Most Loveable Pimp", donned a turban and took to the mic for the forgettable Hindi comedy Singh is Kinng. The rapper said last year he was looking forward to doing "more movies with some of my Bollywood homies". Hollywood is just as keen to exploit opportunities. Will Smith, one of Tinseltown's biggest stars, has been a regular on Indian TV in recent years - popping up at Mumbai parties and crooning Hindi songs on chat shows. The reason is cash - an Indian studio backed two of Smith's movies to the tune of $15m. But Pradham warns India is not immune to the global financial crisis. "I think it may fall apart as the depression hits us too," says Pradhan. Some efforts to tie up elements of Hollywood and Bollywood production have run into difficulty as financial markets have shrunk. Many caution, too, that the cross-cultural fusion can produce some spectacular duds. The best known is probably the film Marigold, which was released in 2007 and featured Bollywood's Salman Khan opposite Hollywood's Ali Larter, best known today for her role in Heroes. Larter played an abrasive US actor who ends up in a Bollywood movie she hates only to fall in love with the film's choreographer, the improbably muscled Khan, who turns out be an Indian prince already betrothed to another woman. Critics said there was "no chance of Marigold 2 at all." Rupee millionaires Kylie Minogue's brief appearance in the Indian movie Blue was worth 55m rupees (£764,000). Ali Larter is rumoured to have picked up 45m rupees (£625,000) for her role in the panned romcom Marigold. Sylvester Stone, whose Rocky films are still aired on Indian TV, was paid 25m rupees (£347,ooo) for a cameo in the forthcoming Kambakht Ishq. Stallone's co-star Denise Richards, who apparently has a larger speaking role, was paid 15m rupees (£208,000) for the same movie. • This article was amended on Monday 30 March 2009. The Bollywood film star Kareena Kapoor is not British-born, as we said. She was born in Mumbai. This has been corrected.