Tollywood superstars like Chiranjeevi, Pawan Kalyan, Mahesh Babu, Allu Arjun, Ram Charan, Jr NTR and Ravi Teja have reportedly jacked up their remunerations in the last few years after delivering hits but they are reluctant to take a pay cut if they deliver a flop.
“Most of the big stars have hiked their remunerations and are reluctant to come down. Some stars even refer to gross collections at the box office to justify their demand. Actually, there is a big difference between gross and net collections. For instance, if a film has grossed Rs 200 crores, the actual money reaching the hands of the distributor is mere Rs 90 to 95 crores. In fact, these collections are actual money earned for a particular movie. Of course, producers do publish gross collections to hype a particular film and encourage the audience to come in. No doubt, fans of respective stars call out rival’s collection figures as fake and indulge in twitter war. But when few stars quote these same gross figures to hike their remuneration which is quite unfortunate,” says a producer on condition of anonymity.
Rubbishing this argument, producer Lagadapati Sridhar, who made films with stars like Allu Arjun says, “I think all these big stars know the difference between gross and net collections because most of them have their own production and distribution houses.” He further states that producers have to work on their numbers before venturing into a project. “Producer should behave like a proper businessman. He has to think about his gains and losses before investing in a project,” he points out.
He also supports superstars and their big remunerations. “It is unfair to blame big stars because they have their own brand value and ready-made market and they are bound to seek an appropriate pay check. Producers approach them for their saleability but they shouldn’t talk against them. If you are so confident about your story, why can’t you make it with a relatively small actor, instead of blaming someone,” he concludes.
