Bollywood’s Revised Cheque List

The truth about Bollywood’s star salaries

There is this amusing story that Bollywood journalists have heard. It involves an actor, now a superstar, and a producer known for making films on tight budgets. The actor had worked with the producer at the beginning of his career, and, approached again in the 1990s by the same producer, felt confident enough to quote a fee of Rs 1 crore. Aghast that he should demand so much, the producer decided to teach him a lesson; he agreed to the sum, but asked the actor’s secretary to meet him outside Amitabh Bachchan’s bungalow in Juhu to collect the cheque. When the secretary reached the spot, the producer pointed to a crowd gathered outside Bachchan’s home, and said, “I will pay your actor that much money the day he has as many fans outside his house. Go tell him that.”

For all you know, this story is a figment of some raconteur’s imagination, and there is plenty of that in Bollywood. But it does make a point—male stars, the ones who hold crowds in awe, are aware of the rarity of their stardom, and they dictate how much they are paid.

“A superstar never goes to a producer or director’s house looking for work. The star never puts a gun to the producer’s head. What he demands is a fee, not a ransom. There’s elementary arithmetic involved here—there are only four or five superstars who can guarantee returns, and that’s why their demand always outstrips supply,” says Sunil Bohra, a third-generation film producer-distributor and reluctant ‘insider’ armed with the latest on which star has upped his fee, which actor is getting what share of a project’s profits, or simply which upcoming film is ‘garam’ (hot).

Only in rare cases do heroines enjoy that status. Madhuri Dixit, for instance, was among the very few. Recently, there was some talk in the media of Kareena Kapoor being signed on for Madhur Bhandarkar’s Heroine at Rs 8 crore, which, if true, would elevate her to the position of India’s highest-paid actress. Although a well-informed executive at a film firm insists that she isn’t getting even “half that price”—after all, Aishwarya Rai would have been doing it if pregnancy hadn’t intervened—Kareena’s astronomical fee brings us to the question of whether heroines can command as much as heroes in a largely male-driven industry. Can they?

The answer is ‘no’. Right now, the fee of a heroine for a film is usually less than a quarter of the hero’s. Moreover, unlike their male co-stars, they do not get a share in profits. Most top heroines go by a fixed rate card, and their only consolation—if you can call it that—is that theirs is the second most powerful presence on a film set, by default, after the hero’s.

Rohan Sippy is matter-of-fact about it. “We rely on heroes to bring in the numbers, and heroines usually don’t have much to do,” says the producer-director, “But there are times when heroes play second-fiddle to a heroine. In addition to that, the male-female lines are blurring because at times a producer invests just as much money on special effects, as in a film like Avatar or Ra.One. In such a scenario, the real hero is not the actor or actress, but ‘sfx’ or animation.”

In Bohra’s assessment, the dynamics of the industry ensure that it is producers who need stars, not the other way round. His words ring especially true in the case of Salman Khan, the careless superstar who “has suddenly realised his true worth”, as his friends put it. No less a heavy-hitter as Aditya Chopra, the most powerful producer in the business, had to take trips to Salman’s Bandra home and his farmhouse on the outskirts of Mumbai several times over before the actor agreed to act in a film under the Yash Raj banner; it would be the first such of Salman’s two-decade long career. His ‘okay’ came at a price—Rs 35 crore as his lumpsum, without any claim to profits.

Contrast Salman’s upfront fee with the peculiar model his friend Aamir Khan has adopted. Those who work with Aamir reveal he takes a minimum sum (could be anything from Rs 5 crore to 7 crore) before he even begins work on the film. But after that—get this—he usually has a lion’s share in the profits. “Aamir believes that everyone, right from the producer to the distributor, must make money. He doesn’t burden the producer by charging a huge amount upfront. He lets the film open well, recover its cost and [break even], before he claims his share,” says a producer who has worked with the actor and is impressed with the way he cushions a film against losses even if it doesn’t do spectacular business. 

This model has reaped rich dividends for Aamir, who hasn’t had a film flop since Mangal Pandey: The Rising. That was six years ago. All other films starring him in the lead role, including Rang De Basanti, Fanaa, Ghajini and 3 Idiots, have been top grossers. As a producer, too, he is outstandingly successful, with films like Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na, Delhi Belly, Peepli [Live] and Dhobi Ghat. Aamir famously follows a simple rule to assess a script/idea: he behaves like its first ‘viewer’, and if it engages him emotionally, so he believes it will the audience. His gut feel is the stuff of legend, though others in the industry insist that he is also a heavy user of market research.

The Bollywood heft of the big three, Shah Rukh, Salman and Aamir, has been spoken about so often that its very mention makes eyes roll, but a report on star salaries without one would be like a Hindi film without a song sequence: better in a roundtable discussion than a movie hall. Over to Sippy.

“The Khans are the safest bet,” says Sippy, as if reading words etched in stone, “They have proved it over 20 years, and a vast majority of their films have been successful. They deserve the fee they are charging because they lead from the front. When you cast any of them, there’s an assurance that you are going to get your money back.”

Superstars like the Khans and Bachchans, he feels, are essential to the survival not only of the industry but also other actors and actresses. Without the success they can assure, there would be fewer films being made overall. “When a producer makes money on a Khan film, he pumps that back into another project that may have a smaller cast,” he explains, “What the Khan and Bachchan films do is keep the cashflow coming.”

And the wham-bam opening weekend, crucial to success calculations these days, has only given the Khans more power. There is no time for word-of-mouth,

superstars have to lure people. “Movie after movie, their opening weeks have grown by an average 20 per cent,” says Sunil Punjabi, CEO, Cinemax India Ltd, “This growth is phenomenal, considering that we only have about three or four Khan releases a year. Star value at the box office is outrageous. The big are only becoming bigger.”

Where, you might wonder, does that leave Amitabh Bachchan? Most concur that the 70s-80s’ superstar is in a different league, and must not be compared with the Khans, his juniors. “The Khans are more bankable than the Bachchans,” says a producer who does not want to be named, “but you must remember that Mr Bachchan is the only actor of the old guard who can bring in an audience on his name. He is in a different age bracket, and it is incredible how he has stayed at the top for so many years. That said, comparing Mr Bachchan and the Khans is like asking ‘Who’s a bigger box office draw, Robert De Niro or Tom Hanks?’ With all due respect to De Niro, we all know a Hanks film is likely to take a bigger opening worldwide.”

Back in the 80s, Bachchan was the first to break into Bollywood’s Crore Bracket. Today, he is in the same shoes that the ageing Dilip Kumar was in during his Shakti days. From earning Rs 35 selling fruits to his first paycheck of Rs 1,000 for Jwar Bhata and finally netting as much as Rs 25-30 lakh in his prime, the thespian set the stage for latter-day actors to command big bucks.

Cut to the present: Bachchan’s presence in a film would cost a producer a modest Rs 4–5 crore. If he is producing a film, he may pick up an exhibition territory or two (of which he can make extra money), as in the case of Bbuddah Hoga Terra Baap. Strangely, though, his son Abhishek, most of whose films have not been blockbusters, charges as much as his legendary father.

Of the younger lot, Bollywood is hoping to be able to count on such stars as Shahid Kapoor and Imran Khan some day. Aware of their pull, they already demand anything between Rs 5 and Rs 7 crore for a film. “Mausam’s all-India opening collection stood at Rs 9 crore. Doesn’t it then make sense to pay Shahid his desired price?” asks Bohra. And then there is Ranbir Kapoor too, who varies his charges for each film.

Yet, other than the Khans and Bachchans, there’s only one actor who can carry a film on his own: Akshay Kumar. (As for Ajay Devgn, a single Singham doesn’t a pride of lions make.) Despite Akshay’s string of flops of the past three years, he still enjoys the patronage of producers thanks to his five-year dream run just before that phase. With his comic turns, he kept the multiplex moolah coming. “His fee isn’t unjustified so long as he brings in the profits, which he did in films like Singh is Kinng, Welcome and Mujhse Shaadi Karogi,” says a producer, refusing to write him off, “Akshay’s flops do more business than the hits of many smaller actors. His films record the biggest TRPs on satellite [broadcasts]. The problem with Akshay is that he is choosing his movies wrong. All he needs is one big hit.” His asking fee, insiders say, has slipped from Rs 30 crore earlier to Rs 20 crore now, and he is even willing to settle for less nowadays. But then, the recent recession saw other actors lowering their rates too. Corporate filmmakers crunched their budgets and realised it’s not viable to sign multi-crore deals with actors anymore. Akshay was a victim of this downsizing effort.

Some say it was corporate producers that had taken star fees to unrealistic heights in the first place—during the boom of the mid-2000s. Kamal Jain, chief financial officer, Eros International, denies these charges outright. “The fact of the matter is that stars were paid astronomically even before the industry became corporatised,” he says, “It’s just that people never heard of the figures before because the dealings then weren’t so transparent.” Bohra agrees. “Earlier,” he says, “there used to be part-cash, part-cheque dealings. After the corporates came in, even a transaction of a single rupee must be by cheque. Everything now is white. Industry ko improve kar diya hai corporates ne, boss (corporate producers have improved the industry).”

Jain points to an interesting upshot of the new accounting regime: “Stars have started paying higher taxes. That’s because the corporates monetised and consolidated the industry. Nobody is grudging them their deserved price. But it’s important to remember that films are a business, and a business runs on profits.”

That is why the big bucks chase superstars. They chase those who multiply the moolah. “I look at it this way,” says a producer who likes to keep his risk of losses to the minimum possible, “If you are not going to pay Aamir Khan because you think it’s risky, then who are you going to pay—Zayed Khan?”

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