Modi Entertainment was distributing Buena Vista releases for the past four years. It also serves as the franchise for Walt Disney's television and merchandising businesses. Sources said that Modi will continue its arrangement with Walt Disney for these businesses. Also, Modi plans to continue, for the time being, its existing distribution contracts with some other independent Hollywood studios like Imperial and also with the ESPN distribution deal. ESPN happens to be a owned by Walt Disney.

The foreign films distribution business in the country isvalued close to Rs 30 crore with Buena Vista having around 18 per cent of the pie. This means that Columbia has netted a business worth more than Rs five crore. According to sources, Columbia--a Sony company--has been pitching hard for this business to add to its distribution business kitty. The company already markets and distributes its parent company's theatrical products as well as releases from a Hollywood studio called Triumph Pictures.

Interestingly, this is the third time in the past six years that the Buena Vista distribution account has changed hands. earlier, in 1992, the business was handled by Warner Bros. and then it was in 1994 that it shifted to Modi Entertainment. While Modi Entertainment was not available for comment, industry observers said that the company had actually opted out of the business as it was not growing according to their projections. It seems that the real potential for distributors of English movies was to be in dubbing the movies in Hindi and other vernaculars. However,after an initial spurt, the dubbed pictures have not taken off as a products.

The tie up between Buena Vista and Columbia, therefore, is being attributed to Modi's willingness to opt out and also to the fact that Columbia acts as a distributor in around four world markets for Buena Vista.