SRK for 'The Lion King'- Akshay Kumar for 'Transformers': The trend of dubbing Hollywood films in Hindi

Disney's inclusion of Shah Rukh Khan and Aryan Khan to dub for the Hindi version of 'The Lion King' has made one thing very clear- that the trend of localising Hollywood cinema is here to stay. 

Shah Rukh Khan and son Aryan will be voicing King Mufasa and Simba respectively, in the Hindi version of 'The Lion King'.

Shah Rukh Khan took to social media as he announced his new project, "Glad to be a part of this journey... A timeless film. Voicing it in Hindi with my own Simba. The last time we did a film was around 15 years ago and it was `Incredible` and this time around it is even more fun".

The trend of dubbing for a Hindi version of English movies was in fact started by SRK and his son Aryan back in 2004 when they voiced 'The Incredibles'.
It seems that the trend took a shine to Bollywood actors. In the past few years, numerous stars have lent their voices to Hollywood films.

Ranveer Singh was roped in to voice Ryan Reynold's avatar as an adult superhero with a dark sense of humour in 'Deadpool 2' whereas Tiger Shroff added his own touch to Spiderman in 'Spiderman: Homecoming'.

Earlier, Akshay Kumar dubbed for the robot superhero Optimus Prime in 'Transformers: Dark of the Moon', and actor Varun Dhawan gave his voice for Chris Evans' character in 'Captain America: Civil War'. South Indian actor Rana Daggubati too entered the Marvel universe when he lent his voice for the supervillain Thanos in the Telugu version of 'Avengers: Infinity War'.

The trend was not limited to actors as singer and songwriter Armaan Malik too, voiced the character of 'Aladdin' in the Hindi version of the film.

Coming back to animated films, Disney's blockbuster 'The Jungle' included Nana Patekar, Shefali Shah, Priyanka Chopra and Irrfan Khan as their Hindi dubbing artists. Khan also lent his voice for 'Rio 2' along with Sonakshi Sinha. 

Actors Siddhant Chaturvedi and Sanya Malhotra recently dubbed for Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson respectively, in the Hindi version of 'Men In Black: International'. 

This shows how Hollywood films are trying to add a Bollywood twist to their movies to cover a wider base in India. Even Hollywood scripts are getting influenced by the Indian demographic as studios are adding more diverse and relatable characters which will get their movies going here.

Screenwriter Mayur Puri who is working on the Hindi version of 'The Lion King' mentioned that "Hindi and other versions of Hollywood films were for people who weren`t accustomed to the world of Hollywood films. If you have to create new audience and show them something that they are not used to watching...We are adapting and localising the content in a way that when they go to watch the film they feel that it`s their own film..."

Even though dubbing for the Hindi version of movies has become popular, it has its own share of challenges.  "I discovered (the process of dubbing) along the way...It is quite a tedious process. There are loads of challenges that one faces while trying to translate into the Hindi language... Sometimes the joke and the punchline does not directly translate into Hindi cultural context, so the cultural translation is one of the biggest aspects," Ranveer had shared with a news agency a while ago. 

Nevertheless, Bollywood is really enjoying its partnership with Hollywood.