High fees of actors have been one of the biggest issues in Hindi cinema. Movies like “Bade Miyan Chhote Miyan” have been drastically affected by this. While actors like Tiger Shroff and Akshay Kumar have felt no financial loss, the entire burden has fallen on Pooja Entertainment, the production house that backed the movie.
It is said that the movie has faced a loss of more than 250 crores. When actors charge heavily but don’t guarantee the desired box office numbers, such handsome payments seem quite worthless at times. Sometimes, an actor’s fees may constitute 30-40% of the total budget of the movie.
Regarding this, famous filmmaker Zoya Akhtar, known for movies like “Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara” and “Dil Dhadakne Do”, has called out Karan Johar, one of the biggest producers in the industry, urging him not to pay actors such huge sums if they do not guarantee a certain box office performance.
Even Karan Johar responded to her appeal, stating that he no longer pays such hefty sums to actors.
We’ve seen similar cases, especially with movies of Prabhas, where he charged heavily for “Adipurush”, which was one of the main reasons for its 600-crore budget. When the movie failed to perform, the makers had to face the backlash. The same can be said for “Bade Miyan Chhote Miyan” and “Ganapath”. Both were high-concept movies with budgets as high as 300 and 200 crores, respectively, and in both cases, a significant amount of money went directly to the actors as their fees.
In such a scenario, Aamir Khan’s method seems more feasible, where he charges a nominal fee with a significant share in the movie’s profits. This method works better, as in India, whenever a movie becomes a superhit, most of the credit goes to the actor involved, so a profit share makes sense in such cases.
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