Correct me if I am wrong but I read in newspapers that it is India's version on Hollywood.

Bollywood is the name given to the Mumbai-based Hindi-language film industry in India. When combined with other Indian film industries (Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Malayalam, Kannada), it is considered to be the largest in the world in terms of number of films produced, and maybe also the number of tickets sold. The term Bollywood was created by conflating Bombay (the city now called Mumbai) and Hollywood (the famous center of the United States film industry). Bollywood films are usually musicals. Few movies are made without at least one song-and-dance number. Indian audiences expect full value for their money; they want songs and dances, love interest, comedy and dare-devil thrills, all mixed up in a three hour long extravaganza with intermission. Such movies are called masala movies, after the spice mixture masala. Like masala, these movies have everything. The plots are often melodramatic. They frequently employ formulaic ingredients such as star-crossed lovers, corrupt politicians, twins separated at birth, conniving villains, angry parents, courtesans with hearts of gold, dramatic reversals of fortune, and convenient coincidences.

Bollywood is the nickname for the film industry in the country of India. In fact, India makes more movies than any other country in the world. However, these movies tend to be a C-grade quasi-musicals that are strange to western viewers. A great one to start with is "Asoka" which is a great historical drama with music-video sequences. Also of interest is the American comedy "The Guru" which spoofs Bollywood.

* What is Bollywood? Bollywood is the nickname given to the Indian film industry - it's a play on the word Hollywood. The B comes from Bombay (also known as Mumbai), a big city in India. Bollywood is massive. It makes up to 800 films a year - twice as many as Hollywood and about 14 million Indian people go to the cinema everyday Films are made so fast that sometimes actors on set shoot scenes for four different films at a time - using the same actors and the same backgrounds. And sometimes the scripts are even hand-written! * Where did it all start? In 1899 the first Indian short film was screened, and Bollywood was born. Just like in Hollywood the films were silent to begin with, then in the 1930s the films became 'talkies'. Many Indians came to live and work in Britain around fifty years ago, and they brought their culture with them. Now, Bollywood's biggest audience outside India is in Britain. * Why is Bollywood so big now? 2002 was the year it all kicked off for Bollywood in Britain. A season of Indian films was shown on TV when India and England played in a big cricket tournament. A department store devoted a summer to Indian fashion, and shops everywhere were full of colourful clothes, bindis, bangles, saris and henna. Bombay Dreams, a new West End musical, was a sell out. Special cinemas also showed Bollywood classic films and had exhibitions featuring Bollywood film posters. Lagaan, a huge Bollywood hit, was nominated for an Oscar. The charts were full of Bhangra, with Timbaland, Dr Dre and the Neptunes sampling Indian beats and Punjabi MC having big hits. India was even featured in cool car adverts. Bollywood films have managed to cross over and now it's not just Indian families watching them - they're being shown in big cinemas across the UK. * What makes Bollywood films unusual? Bollywood films are really colourful and crammed with singing, dancing, loads of costume changes. The also used to stick to a formula of boy meets girl, they fall in love and they struggle for family approval. There's also always a hero, a heroine, a vamp and a comedy sidekick. Romance is big but there's no snogging! * What problems does Bollywood face? Bollywood's biggest problem is piracy - where people copy the films and either sell them or show them to other people for free. At the moment not all films made make more money than they cost to make, even though they can be seen by around one billion people. If everyone paid to see the film legally the industry would make lots more money. At the moment Bollywood film producers are trying to work out a way to stop this happening. Another problem is that younger generations sometimes find the stories a bit predictable and are get bored of the similar tales. Film-makers are trying to solve this by changing storylines to reflect real life - like the fact that children of Indian families now study abroad. * What's the future for Bollywood? The future looks even brighter for Bollywood. Big US film companies such as Warner Bros and Twentieth Century Fox are setting up offices in India. Where Indian film makers have found it difficult to compete with Hollywood's special effects, this is seen as the next big area for Bollywood to develop.

Its hindi film industry just like hollywood but they have songs in their movies. eg:

Bollywood doesn't have anything to do with Hollywood. Bollywood is one and the most famous of Indian film industries in which film are made in Hindi language (Indian national language). Over time people got used to calling it Bollywood just to make the name look like Hollywood or perhaps it would attract many people world wide. Bollywood is actually called "Hindi film industry". It is not a Indian version of Hollywood. And Bollywood is the only film industry which is almost as popular as Hollywood. But Bollywood films are mostly family dramas and consist 5 or 6 songs, making the movie as long as 2 and a half hour to 3 hours. READ MORE BELOW http://bollywoodjalsa.com/bollywood-news/bollywood-so-what-is-bollywood/

"Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Mumbai-based Hindi-language film industry (Hindi cinema) in India" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollywood

Indian Hollywood