India releases more than 1,500 films a year across its many language industries, making it one of the world's most prolific film cultures and often cited as the largest by feature-film output. The math is different from Hollywood's: smaller budgets, far higher volume, and success counted across a domestic audience of over a billion people plus a huge diaspora abroad.

This is why a star like Shah Rukh Khan can be one of the most recognized people alive yet barely known in parts of the West. The gap is a blind spot in Western awareness, not a limit on Bollywood's reach.