Just one week after news broke that Anil Ambani's Reliance Big Entertainment (RBE) is in talks to invest in DreamWorks, the Indian company has announced a joint venture with India's first family of Hindi cinema, the Bachchans.

The tie-up covers the production of films, TV series, reality shows, internet and mobile content, as well as live shows.

Under the terms of the joint venture, the Bachchans will provide creative input and take a share of the profits, while RBE will oversee management, marketing and distribution of the projects. The deal does not preclude the Bachchans from working on outside projects.

In addition to patriarch Amitabh, the Bachchan family includes his wife Jaya, son Abhishek and daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai.

The joint venture will kick off with a six-film slate for which a few Indian directors have already been lined up, including R Balakrishnan, Sujoy Ghosh, Rohan Sippy and Chandraprakash Dwivedi.

Anil Ambani and Amitabh Bachchan are already good friends, and the latter writes a highly successful blog on RBE's site bigadda.com. 'The JV is to produce content, share profits and hold rights equally,' Amitabh Bachchan told Screendaily.

RBE has been flexing its muscles since Cannes last month, when it announced plans to invest $1bn in its film operations, which include development deals with the production outfits of several Hollywood stars.

'This is in line with our strategy to tie up with leading Indian and international creative talent, that will help the company to build a new-age, future- ready, global media and entertainment company,' RBE said in an official statement.

The joint venture will function under a new special purpose vehicle (SPV) which will bring together the industry and creative expertise of the Bachchans with the business acumen of Reliance.

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