The pandemic has played havoc with budgets, finances, fees and upkeep across the board. In cinema where actors charge in multiple crores, sometimes as much as 150-plus crores if you an Akshay Kumar or Salman Khan, the growing discrepancies in the pay scale are even glaring.
Star remunerations are relatively cheaper in the South. Rajinikanth, Vijay and Mahesh Babu charge a fraction of their Bollywood counterparts. And yet Telugu cinema’s living legend Chiranjeevi and his star-son Ram Charan have decided to forego their remuneration completely for Acharya, their collaborative film which opens this Friday.
A well-placed source from Hyderabad reveals, “It was Chiranjeevi’s idea to forgo his remuneration . His son Ram Charan had no choice but to follow suit. After the two main actors even the director Koratala Shiva has waived his fees.”
It’s time Bollywood behemoths scaled down their staggering fees , if for no other reason then for the sake of humanism. Bachchan Pandey and Jersey prove that the star system is fast fading in Bollywood.