Opinion | Real Deal: Bollywood’s New Red Carpet – Why Are Indian Films Looking Abroad For Their Big Premieres | Opinion News

Last Updated:November 14, 2026, 09:00 IST

From London to Los Angeles, Indian films are heading overseas for glitzy premieres before opening at home. But can a Hollywood red carpet really win new audiences and sell tickets?

There was a time when a Bollywood premiere in London meant Shah Rukh Khan, screaming fans, flashing cameras and enough excitement to make Leicester Square feel like a little corner of Mumbai. For one evening, London belonged to Bollywood.

These days, Los Angeles is increasingly getting the first look. Hollywood, it seems, is getting a taste of Bollywood before Bollywood gets a taste of the box office.

When recently, Ramayana held its Los Angeles premiere at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, the choice of venue was hard to miss. Ranbir Kapoor, Sai Pallavi and Yash were taking one of India’s best-known epics to the city that practically runs the global film business. Indian audiences were still waiting, but Hollywood had already been invited.

And this wasn’t Bollywood’s first overseas outing. Far from it. What has changed is what these premieres are expected to do.

The Overseas Premiere Has Grown Up

Remember Guru? Its Toronto premiere brought Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan before an international audience. Then came Om Shanti Om, with Shah Rukh Khan bringing his considerable star power to London’s Leicester Square. These were big nights, full of fans, excitement and the unmistakable feeling that Bollywood had arrived.

For a long time, that was largely the point. Overseas premieres were often celebrations for the Indian community abroad. The stars came, fans turned up in droves, photographs were taken, and everyone went home happy. Nothing wrong with that. The diaspora has supported Indian cinema for decades, often with an enthusiasm that domestic publicity teams can only dream of.

But the guest list is changing, and so is the ambition. Today, a premiere in Los Angeles, Toronto or Paris is as much about international journalists, distributors, industry executives and curious filmgoers as it is about the fans. Filmmakers want their films talked about outside the familiar Indian audience. They want the right people in the room, the right photographs in circulation and, hopefully, a few new viewers wondering what all the fuss is about.

The screaming fans are still welcome, of course. Nobody has ever complained about a little enthusiasm at a premiere.

There’s Business Behind The Glamour

Look at Thank You For Coming, which took its film to the Toronto International Film Festival, or Dobaaraa, which made its way to the London Indian Film Festival. Bawaal, meanwhile, had a Paris premiere before its streaming release.

Each had a different purpose. A festival appearance can introduce a film to audiences and critics who might otherwise miss it. A premiere can generate publicity, put the cast in front of international media and give a release a little extra shine. For a streaming film, it can help create the feeling of an event even without a conventional theatrical opening.

And in today’s publicity business, a little extra shine goes a long way.

One photograph of a star on a Los Angeles red carpet can travel around the world in minutes. A premiere clip can find its way onto social media, entertainment portals and television screens before the cast has even left the venue. The publicity team gets its moment, the film gets its visibility, and everyone has something to post.

But there is a commercial reason for all this, too. Overseas markets have become increasingly important to Indian films. The diaspora remains a loyal audience, while streaming and international distribution have made it easier for films to reach viewers who may not speak an Indian language or know its stars. The overseas premiere is no longer just a party before the release. It is part of the sales pitch.

Hollywood Has Been Playing This Game For Years

Indian filmmakers are hardly inventing the idea of taking a film abroad before its home release. Hollywood has been doing it for years, often for very practical reasons.

The Jungle Book opened in India ahead of its US release. Avengers: Age of Ultron also arrived here earlier than in America. And Kung Fu Panda 3 opened in China before the US, taking advantage of the market and its release calendar.

These weren’t charity screenings for enthusiastic fans. They were business decisions. Release dates were chosen to suit local audiences, avoid competition and give films the best possible chance at the box office.

Indian cinema is beginning to think along similar lines. The overseas market is not simply somewhere to send a film after India has had its turn. It can be part of the plan from the beginning.

That is a good thing. If Indian films want to travel, their makers need to think about where they are going, who might watch them and how those audiences will hear about them. A premiere is one way of getting the conversation started.

A Red Carpet Cannot Rescue A Bad Film

Here, though, is the catch. A packed premiere, a glamorous venue and a few thousand photographs do not necessarily translate into ticket sales.

RRR is a reminder of what can happen when international interest takes on a life of its own. Its overseas success was fuelled by screenings, audience reactions and word of mouth. People watched it, loved it, talked about it and persuaded others to watch it. The excitement spread well beyond the usual Indian film audience.

That is rather different from simply announcing that a film has had a premiere in Hollywood.

A premiere can get people curious. It can put a film on the radar. But reviews, audience reactions and the film itself determine whether that curiosity lasts. A red carpet may get the cameras rolling; it cannot do much about the screenplay.

Nor does every overseas premiere need to deliver a box-office triumph. Sometimes the aim is to build awareness, sometimes to attract distributors, and sometimes to give a streaming release a little more attention. The trouble begins when the photographs are mistaken for proof that a film has conquered the world.

Bollywood has never had a shortage of spectacular photographs.

The Real Test Comes After The Photographs

What makes this new wave of overseas premieres interesting is the ambition behind them. Indian filmmakers are no longer content with taking their films to audiences who already know and love them. Increasingly, they want to introduce Indian cinema to people who may never have watched a Bollywood film before.

That is a much harder job than organising a glamorous evening. It means finding stories that travel, making them accessible to unfamiliar audiences and ensuring that people can actually watch them once the publicity is over. It also means accepting that a Hollywood address does not automatically make a film international.

Which brings us back to Ramayana in Los Angeles. The premiere was not proof that Bollywood had finally discovered Hollywood. Indian cinema has been crossing borders for decades. What it did suggest was that filmmakers are beginning to treat those borders as part of the release strategy.

Are Indian filmmakers finally making films for the world, or are they simply getting better at marketing Indian films to the world?

Perhaps a little of both. And there is nothing wrong with a grand entrance. But the real achievement would be to have audiences asking for an encore long after the red carpet has been rolled away.

Hollywood may be getting used to Bollywood’s grand entrances. The trick now is to give it a reason to stay for the film.

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