Why Vishnuvardhan Turned Down Rs 1.5 Crore and Paid His Own Staff
In the post-pandemic era, the Indian film industry has largely been grappling with two recurring issues: weak scripts and the ever-growing entourage culture surrounding stars. Industry insiders have been opening up about actors’s demands that range from multiple vanity vans, large personal teams, to a hefty fees that sometimes increases a film’s overall budget. The difference between the production cost and actor’s fees was out in open when filmmaker Anil Ravipudi told Great Andhra that the filmmaking cost for Chiranjeevi’s blockbuster hit Mana Shankara Vara Prasad Garu was between Rs 28-30 crore while the film’s budget was Rs 200 crore. However, things were very different until a few decades ago. One Kannada superstar, despite enjoying the status of a matinee idol among the Kannada diaspora, famously refused to raise his fee beyond Rs 75 lakh. Over a career spanning nearly four decades (from the 1970s to the early 2000s) and more than 200 films as a lead actor, his highest fee ever was Rs 75 lakh. Even more remarkably, he would never allow producers to …
