The rapidly escalating costs of stars in the Hindi film industry have been a central topic of debate lately. In a recent roundtable by The Hollywood Reporter India, celebrated filmmakers Karan Johar and Zoya Akhtar opined on the issue. While Karan complained about the high entourage cost of mainstream big male celebs, Zoya Akhtar gave him a simple response.

As Karan Johar reflected on the massive success of the content-driven film ‘Stree 2’ which was developed around a budget of 6o crores, the filmmaker iterated that Bollywood needed change. He said, “All the actors, who are charging, for what they charge for a big multiverse, they have to look at the way. Everybody has to come and make a film together and make it happen. We must tell all kinds of stories and Hindi Cinema is craving for all kinds of content that must be told. But the thing is that movies don’t do the numbers. And they collapse and then you are not getting the ability to make that film. Superstars are no longer a reason for a movie to open.”

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Moreover, the director-producer revealed that A-lister male celebrities quoted fees equal to the budget for the film, ‘Kill.’ “What is your last couple of films? How much have you opened to? With what right are you asking me for this number? I made a small film called Kill. I put the money in it because it was a high-concept film with a rank newcomer as the face of it. Because I’ve started doing it. It was a high-concept action film. You could not make Kill in any other way. It had to be in that train.”

He added, “Every star asked me for the same money that the budget was for. I was like, ‘How can I pay you? When the budget is ₹40 crore, you’re asking for ₹40 crore? Are you guaranteeing the film will do ₹120 crore? There’s no guarantee, right? So finally, I took a new boy, and he was an ‘outsider,’ I have to say it.”

 

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As he talked about the high fees of the handful of male A-list actors, Zoya Akhtar intervened. She responded, “They are not going to know. But Karan, you have to just stop paying. You have to stop paying. That’s it.” To this, Karan replied that he has stopped paying, citing the example of ‘Kill’ which starred Lakshya and Raghav Juyal. Moreover, Zoya also affirmed that the technical team needs to start getting paid well, in contrast to stars sweeping 70% off the film’s budgets.

Meanwhile, this isn’t the first time, Karan Johar has talked about the issue. Previously, in a conversation with Faye D’Souza, he talked about the inflation in filmmaking. Iterating the fact that big celebrities are asking for 35 crores while their films are opening to only 3.5 crores. He revealed that the stars’ fees, in addition to the production and marketing costs skyrocketed the budget. Even then, the films fail to record numbers at the box office.