Bullywood?

First we had Hollywood, then Hollywood North & Bollywood, but are we ready for the rise of Bullywood? Business Week carries this report:

Stray dogs drinking from puddles are the only sign of life on a rainy day at Boyana Film Studios in Sofia, Bulgaria. Rotting cabbages and potatoes, left from an Italian TV shoot, lie scattered on a street built to look like Boston's North End. A Roman coliseum awaits a new sword-and-sandal epic.

No, there's not a palm tree in sight, but this Communist-era studio could become the Balkans' answer to Burbank. Los Angeles film producer Nu Image Inc., which has made 47 movies in Bulgaria since 1999, wants to buy Boyana and use it to vault beyond its action-flick niche and into films with Oscar potential. "I'm going to turn Boyana into one of the most important studios in Europe," says David Varod, a set-designer-turned-producer who is Nu Image's man in Bulgaria.

Varod's vow is not just show-biz bluster. Currently, Nu Image Bulgaria operates from a building that once housed an indoor swimming pool in Sofia, where it has built a thriving business churning out lowbrow titles such as Today You Die and Raging Sharks. But last year, Nu Image achieved what Varod hopes will be a breakthrough when it shot director Brian De Palma's latest thriller, The Black Dahlia, on an ersatz L.A. street. Boyana, set on 74 acres just outside Sofia, would give Nu Image a prime launching pad for its ambitions to produce more such prestige work.

Eastern Europe is already a filmmaking hot spot. Studios such as Prague's Barrandov, the setting for some of Walt Disney Co.'s (DIS ) current hit The Chronicles of Narnia, have a reputation for skilled technical work at relatively low cost. But Bulgaria is even cheaper. Varod estimates that costs are 50% to 60% below those of Hollywood. Besides, "Boyana is up there with the iconic film studios. It's a great brand," says Patrick Newman, a consultant who represents London's Ealing Studios, which covets Boyana, too. Some Boyana equipment is out of date, but its facilities include gems such as a soundproof orchestra recording studio that would be prohibitively expensive to build from scratch. It also has an arsenal of medieval weapons.

I have no idea whether this is a feasible business model but the idea of a "Bullywood" churning out Hollywood celluloid just charms me. Well that, and the idea of Bulgarian film studio owning its own medieval weapons arsenal.