This director has charged 30 times as much fees as his stars for his most recent project
The way movie business is structured, stars – whose faces are often on the posters – end up with the highest remuneration and bulk of earnings from any project. Be it a film or one of the bigger shows these days, chances are that stars’ salaries will account for 60-70% of the total production budget. Directors are much lower in the hierarchy of earnings even though they figuratively pull the strings. There are, however, a few exceptions to this norm. And one such recent case saw a director harge as much as 30 times his stars’ salaries.
India’s highest-paid director, who charges 30 times his stars
The recent Netflix show Heeramandi marked Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s OTT debut. The series, which Bhansali, had initially conceptualised as a film years back, stars six women in the lead, along with an assortment of stars in supporting roles. However, Bhansali’s payday from the show was much larger than any of the stars, or even all of them combined. As per reports, Bhansali charged Rs 60 crore for the project. In contrast, Sonakshi Sinha – the highest-paid of the cast members – reportedly earned Rs 2 crore for her role in the show. That is a monumental 30 times difference between the salary of the director and star. Other stars – Manisha Koirala, Richa Chadha, Aditi Rao Hydari, Sharmin Sehgal, and Sanjeeda Sheikh – all charged below Rs 2 crore.
With this, Bhansali has also become India’s highest paid director on OTT, eclipsing Rohit Shetty, who had reportedly charged somewhere between Rs 20-30 crore for Prime Video’s Indian Police Force. Usually, directors are not so highly paid on the streaming medium but Bhansali and Shetty were able to command such fees due to the fact that their name was the selling point of their respective shows, and not the stars.
Heeramandi is currently streaming on Netflix. The show has received mixed to positive reviews with praise for the performances and visuals. Viewers’ response has been divided with many praising its scale, but others criticising historical inaccuracies in the period drama.
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