The three-week long shoot of Farah Khan's directorial flick "Happy New Year" has fetched $5 million to the UAE, according to Dubai TV and Film commission.
The significant portions of the film, which stars Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone and Abhishek Bachchan in the lead roles, will be filmed entirely in UAE. It is the first full-length Hindi film that will be shot almost fully in the Emirates, The National reported.
Bollywood films generally choose Dubai as location to shoot one or two scenes.
The "Happy New Year" team including the director, actors and other crew members were in Dubai for three weeks to shoot the first schedule of the film. Apart from "HNY", two others Bollywood films will be shot in Emirates, the commission said, but did not reveal the name of the other two films.
The commission, which worked with Red Chillies Entertainment for a year to set up for the shoot, said in a statement that $5 million is just an estimate and the accurate figure will be revealed this month or by November. Spending on hotel rooms for the staff, flights and equipment charges and space rentals would have benefited Emirates economy.
"This is not just a dance scene, but about 80-90 per cent of the whole film that was shot in Dubai. We had to learn the logistics. Normally we've only dealt with a maximum of 40 people who come to do a dance scene in two to five days," Jamal Al Sharif, the chairman of the film commission said, according to The National.
The production company booked around 180 rooms at the Atlantis hotel on the Palm Island for 25 days for the entire team of the film.
"This will impact culturally on what they're doing. They're creating jobs and we're hoping that further Bollywood films will support [our] GDP. We are expecting the next door to open for Bollywood to be in Dubai and the Middle East," Al Sharif added.
