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SYLVESTER STALLONE, the star of the Rocky and Rambo films, is to become the first well-known Hollywood actor to star in a Bollywood movie.

Stallone’s fellow action hero Arnold Schwarzenegger, now governor of California, will also feature in the production.

The two will appear alongside the Bollywood stars Ashkay Kumar and Kareena Kapoor in Incredible Love, the story of an Indian stuntman who takes Hollywood by storm but cannot find true love there.

The film will be the first Indian production to be shot at Hollywood’s Universal Studios and will have the highest budget in Bollywood history: more than £11m.

Sajid Nadiadwala, the producer, said his success in landing Stallone and Schwarzenegger reflected the growing power of the Indian film market and Bollywood’s increasing cooperation with Hollywood studios that are keen to cut costs.

Nadiadwala’s announcement followed the disclosure that the Bombay billionaire Anil Ambani, the world’s sixth richest man, worth £21 billion, had clinched a £300m deal to relaunch Steven Spielberg’s Dreamworks studio as an independent film maker.

Ambani’s Reliance Big Entertainment has recently signed Tom Hanks, George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Nicolas Cage for joint production deals. At this year’s Cannes film festival, Ambani announced he would invest more than £500m in developing film projects with the stars’ own production firms.

Hollywood’s big studios have ambitions to expand in India and have recently set up bases in Bombay. Meenakshi Shedde, a Bollywood film critic, said India would remain a difficult market for Hollywood to crack, but Bollywood might enjoy greater success in America. “It’s as much about Bollywood getting a slice of Hollywood. We have too strong a film culture to bend over backwards for them,” she said.

The Indian producers who are banking on Stallone may be disappointed by his star power. The latest Rambo film disappointed at the box office and the British Odeon chain refused to show it for “commercial reasons”.

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