Sharing the returns

Surekha Kadapa-Bose

The cash counters haven’t stopped ringing even 12 weeks after the release of Marathi film Sairat. Made on a shoestring budget of Rs 4 crore, the film has amassed a whopping Rs 100 crore, and is still making money.

But this isn’t the news. Unbelievably the producers — Nagraj Manujle (also the director), Nitin Keni and Nikhil Sane — are said to have given a bonus of Rs 5 crore each to Rinku Rajguru and Akash Thosur, who play the protagonists, besides many others involved with the film.

This has brought in a lot of excitement as well as apprehension in the film industry. Will this trend be replicated in Bollywood and southern film industry? For here, the profits run in Rs 100 crore. According to the trade reports, films like Bahubali — The Beginning made for Rs 120 crore has so far earned Rs 600 crore; PK made for Rs 85 crore earned Rs 741 crore; Bajrangi Bhaijaan made at Rs 90 crore earned Rs 626 crore; Chennai Express made for Rs 115 crore made Rs 423 crore, and the list of super grosser is endless. Now the latest film Sultan, made on a budget of Rs 70 crore grossed more than Rs 520 crore within 16 days of its release. It’s expected to earn more for the producer Aditya Chopra of Yash Raj Films.

No doubt as compared to the Sairat’s actors who were said to have been signed for just Rs 4 lakh each, the Bollywood and Southern film stars are paid a huge amount. It is said A-grade actors like the Khans (SRK, Salman, Aamir), Akshay Kumar, Ranbir Kapoor, Shahid Kapoor, Ranveer Singh, Ajay Devgn and few others charge between Rs 15 crore and Rs 50 crore per film. Top female actors like Deepika Padukone, Kangana Ranaut, Kareena Kapoor, Aishwarya Rai, Katrina Kaif, Anushka Sharma, Priyanka Chopra, Alia Bhatt too get paid between Rs 5 crore and Rs 15 crore per film.

A couple of months back, the film industry was in the midst of a debate that said the highly paid actors and directors should pay back the producers when the film fares dismally at the boxoffice. The money they receive is due to their track records, and if a film fails, they too should share the producer’s woes.

The subject of compensating the losses was initiated with the debacle of last year’s film Bombay Velvet, which was directed and co-produced by Anurag Kashyap. Made on a whopping budget of Rs 120 crore, it could recover barely Rs 32 crore! This is when Kashyap of Phantom Films was supposed to have ‘offered’ to bear the losses.

Following this media declaration was the misfortune of another film Tamasha, which was directed by Imtiaz Ali and starred Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone. Distributors had paid a huge amount as the film had former lovers Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone with the one of most successful directors at the helm. The film flopped at the boxoffice. It is said both the protagonists had offered to pay back Rs 15 crore to the producers.

Even the film Fan, which was supposed to resuscitate the acting career of Shah Rukh Khan, after he came in for whole lot of criticism for some of his previous films like Happy New Year, Dilwale, etc. did get accolades from film critics but its boxoffice collections were dismal. According to trade pundits, the film made at a cost of Rs 105 crore hasn’t been able to generate profits leading to distributors not earning the expected returns. SRK, of course, got his fees separately in the form of satellite rights, which is said to have been something between Rs 35 crore and Rs 40 crore. The question everyone seems to be raising: will he reimburse his producer friend Aditya Chopra of Yash Raj films, who in turn could compensate the film’s distributors? But then, the Chopras never paid extra when his earlier films gave them a huge profit!

Last year Rajinikanth’s film Lingaa, starring Sonakshi Sinha opposite the doyen, also failed to reach the expected returns with the distributors braying for the blood of Rajini. Similar reaction was meted out to Kamal Hassan when his film Vishwaroopam too couldn’t get the kind of returns expected. Of course, these films didn’t lose but the profits weren’t large.

Interestingly, Rajinikanth has been magnanimous to his distributors. In 2002, when South’s mega star’s Baba failed at the boxoffice he compensated and repeated the gesture six years later, when Kuselan failed miserably. His latest release Kabali is expected to earn handsomely.