Bollywood Filmmakers Speak Up On Over The Top Remuneration of Actors
Mumbai, August 14 - The largest Indian film industry, Bollywood is going through a crisis and things are getting worse with each passing film. The reasons why Bollywood films aren't getting successful at the box office are mixed. One of the main reasons Bollywood films are failing is over the top remuneration of actors which is leading to weakening the quality of film's content. ##
There has been chatter about how the film's quality is being compromised to keep the budget in check amid the high fees of actors. It is a sad reality of the Hindi film industry that many actors, who debuted in the last 10-15 years, are asking for high remuneration while the lifetime collection of their films ends up below what they have been asking for. ##
The high asking price of actors to star in the movie is definitely a major concern, but it is not the only thing Bollywood needs to correct. Filmmaker Mukesh Bhatt believes that while stars' fees is a concern, the entire economics on which the film industry is operating today is wrong amid the emergence of OTT platforms. ##
Mahesh Bhatt said that production houses have paid "such ridiculous fees" to actors because the OTT platforms were offering ludicrous deals to them. However, it proved to be a short-term gain as OTT platforms have pulled back from offering big deals to the filmmakers which have left the industry in a big mess. ##
"Nobody was concerned with making a movie, everybody was doing arithmetic and considering which star to cast so that the film can be sold to OTT and satellite and make big bucks. The best of people make the worst of mistakes. The time has come to correct the mistake. The stars don't deserve the kind of money they are charging, because their films don"™t have that kind of opening", Mahesh Bhatt told ETimes. ##
Producer Ratan Jain said that there was a time when films used to be produced by an independent producer so the stars' fees were not a major concern. However, ever since the corporates came in, they started throwing money like water, leading to a significant rise in the prices of actors which has done huge damage to the industry. ##
Mukesh Bhatt agreed with Jain and said that "corporates destroyed the industry by pumping huge amounts of money without any understanding of filmmaking. And now they have all shut down, so a correction is bound to happen. When you do business with the wrong economics, then it cannot sustain. The independent producers became like white tigers. Because the independent producers and distributors didn't have that kind of deep pockets to invest that kind of money".##
Akshay Kumar reflects on the idea and says, "A lot of people are bothered by the lack of big box office numbers and such people believe that things need to be changed. I have always believed that the monetary aspect of cinema should first be aimed at the film's writer because he/she is the most important person on the project. The biggest heroes of our industry are our writers. If a writer cracks a story or a screenplay, no film can go wrong. Next in line of importance comes the director, then the technicians, and finally actors".##
Industry veterans observe that the content in Hindi cinema has undergone a drastic change and certain elements that attracted footfalls in the theatres have been ignored by filmmakers lately. Apart from fee correction, they believe Bollywood also needs content correction that will bring the audience back to the cinemas. Producers Dinesh Vijan (Maddock Films), and NR Pachisia, among others, also spoke up on the same.##
Note: The image above is just used for representation purposes only and doesn't necessarily related to the content.##
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