HINDUJA Brothers are making a comeback to the silver screen after a long break with Ashok Hinduja’s In Entertainment Co Ltd (IEL).

The youngest of the four brothers plans to go the whole hog from production and distribution to funding. With a kitty of Rs 500 crore, half equity and half debt, IEL may even get into film exhibition at a later stage.

Ashok Hinduja’s daughter, Ambika, will spearhead one vertical, Serendipity Films, which already has one film to its credit (Being Cyrus) and is ready to roll out her second film Teen Patti starring Amitabh Bachchan and Ben Kingsley. For starters, Ashok Hinduja has got on board Sunir Kheterpal as the CEO of In Entertainment, who comes from Big Pictures (where he was COO).

With a lot of corporates having burnt their fingers, Hinduja’s reentry does leave a question mark about the timing of the foray.

“People come and go and new people keep coming in, But what we bring is a huge wealth of experience, strength of relationships within the industry as well as an eye on quality, which does not translate into art cinema. The film industry is more corporatised today. Though it’s still a high-risk business, there is an option of insurance available today, as well as multiple revenue streams. We saw a window available and decided the time was right,” says chairman of the Hinduja Group India Ashok Hinduja.

Scale is something which is definitely an option Hinduja is aiming for, and more equity infusion, acquisitions, as well as going public are options he is open to. “We are open to everything from exhibition to picking up projects which may be stuck mid-way for lack of finance. Basically, it is a message to the industry that we have opened a new window,” adds a very confident Hinduja.

Teen Patti will be the first film that In Entertainment will distribute worldwide and Hinduja is looking at leveraging the presence of the group across unchartered territories such as Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Cairo, Damascus among others to distribute the film. Before the Bachchan-starrer Teen Patti, Hinduja has tied in rights for 75 English films for distribution in India and Saarc countries which include film like Peter Marshall’s The Horseman, Daniel Craig starrer Defiance, Michael Moore’s Farenheight 9/111/2, Keira Knightley’s The Duchess among many others.