Following news that the Walt Disney Co is taking a majority stake in India's UTV Software Communications, the two companies have announced that subsidiary UTV Motion Pictures will now exclusively handle sales and distribution of all Disney releases in India.

The agreement begins January 1, 2009. Among the forthcoming titles are Bedtime Stories, Bolt and G Force. Disney will continue to handle its own marketing.

'The combined offering of UTV and Disney content will offer Indian exhibitors and viewers a tremendously diverse range of movies across languages and genres,' said UTV Motion Pictures CEO Siddharth Roy Kapur. 'This further strengthens our synergies with Disney and we look forward to more such collaborations in the future.'

Kapur also said that some titles would be dubbed in Hindi and regional languages and released nationally.

Mahesh Samat, senior vice president and managing director, Walt Disney Co India, said: 'Disney is thrilled to have UTV as distribution partners for our films in India. UTV's leadership in India's rapidly growing film production and distribution space will strengthen our initiatives to build a family entertainment brand in the country by increasing the reach of our Hollywood films here.'

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