Aamir Khan: I cry when my films don’t work

On the inaugural day of the fifth Indian Screenwriters Conference, Aamir Khan was one of the speakers. Aamir opened up on the kind of business model he took into account when selecting films and, more importantly, making money from these films, explaining why he gets a higher cut in the profits and why he selects a particular film over another.

During an interactive session, Aamir was asked whether it was a worrying trend that actors were costing the film 80 percent of the total cost, as fees rather than as profits. To this, Aamir candidly answered, “My first rupee comes to me when the film’s cost is recovered in every aspect after the producer’s and everybody else’s money is recovered. That’s the model I work with, and certainly, I take a higher cut in the percentage because I am risking my time on that, and I think producers are happy with that too.”

He explained, “The model that I work on is that, say a film costs Rs 100 crore to make. It consists of everything – cast, crew, production cost, post-production cost and everything comes in that. I don’t take any money in that. I take nothing.” He even talked about the fact that only when all these people, including Promotion and Advertising, get their money back from profits does he get any money. If the film doesn’t do well, he doesn’t get any money.  “I want to go with my conviction while making a film and if there is a loss, I will mourn that also. I cry when my films don’t work,” he said.

So far, Aamir has had a pretty successful run of films becoming big box office grossers like Dangal, 3 Idiots, PK, Dhoom 3 and Lagaan. Taking the latter film as an example, he said, “Since that film was one of the expensive films of that time and was breaking a lot of rules of mainstream Indian cinema and that is why I felt the importance of taking the responsibility. That apart, I know when I come on board, producers and financiers do not question me on the subject I chose for a film because they trust me, they have faith in me. That is why I want to ensure the profit.”

Aamir is currently working on Vijay Krishna Acharya’s Thugs of Hindostan, opposite Amitabh Bachchan, Katrina Kaif and Fatima Sana Shaikh, which releases November 7, 2018.