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Star entourages bleed profit, says producer Ramesh Taurani
“It is not so much about production cost – it is more about star fees,” says producer Ramesh Taurani, best known for the successful Race action franchise.
Actors, filmmakers said, increasingly arrive on set with a dozen-strong entourage – including makeup artists, hairdressers, stylists, gym trainers and assistants – all billed to production.
And , Aamir Khan
Stars are paid hefty fees of up to $22.18 million (£16.3m) per film, but additional requests for first-class travel, five-star hotels, multiple private trailers and work-shy hours have become routine.
“Expansive support teams, premium travel and luxury accommodations often inflate budgets without proportionate creative impact,” said veteran producer Mukesh Bhatt. “The kind of demands stars make is obnoxious.”
Distributor and trade analyst Raj Bansal added: “One actor usually comes with 10 to 15 staff members.
“Earlier, actors wouldn’t mind sharing one vanity van. Then they decided to give one vanity van each to a big star – and demand went on increasing.”
A single trailer hired for the duration of a film shoot can cost as much $18,000. For some actors, insiders said, demanding more has become a status symbol.
The Hindi language film industry has always been considered high-risk, producing more flops than hits, but producers said the balance has tipped sharply as star-driven costs spiral beyond what box office returns can sustain.
The fragile model was shaken after the pandemic, when streaming platforms bought films at inflated prices.
When those deals dried up, producers faced a painful course correction as income plunged, but actors’ demands stayed elevated. And that problem continues today.
Competition has also intensified. “Audience behaviour has matured, streaming platforms have broadened horizons and regional cinema has elevated creative standards,” said Bhatt.
“Yet, alongside this progress, rising production costs – particularly tale n t - d r i v e n budgets – have introduced a significant strain. It is not the films that falter, but the economics that lose balance.”
Actor-filmmaker Aamir Khan slammed stars for burdening producers with these costs. “You earn in crores (tens of millions of rupees),” Khan said, in a September interview with the YouTube show Game Changers. “Where’s your self-respect?”
Industry insiders said actors’ demands also have a cascading effect, as stars seek to exceed each other’s perks.
“A measured approach will allow us to redirect resources toward what truly defines cinema – the power of storytelling,” said Bhatt.
Producers have pushed for partnership-style compensation models.
“When a film thrives, every contributor should benefit,” Bhatt said. “When it struggles, the weight should not rest solely on the producer, who shoulders risk from the very beginning.”
The 2024 science fiction action film Bade Miyan Chote Miyan, starring Akshay Kumar and Tiger Shroff, reportedly cost about $42m (£31m). After poor ticket sales, producers were reported to have mortgaged property to cover debts.
There have been exceptions.
Actor Kartik Aaryan waived his fee for the 2023 action-comedy Shehzada, which tanked at the box office.
“If your star value and the entire project’s value gives profit to the entire team, I think then the math adds up,” Aaryan said. “If it doesn’t, then you should take a cut.”
Some producers argue that the industry must confront its own excesses.
“If the star fee and entourage is affecting your budget, then don’t take stars,” says actor-writer-producer Viveck Vaswani. “I have made 40 films with 40 newcomers and have prospered. I took SRK (Shah Rukh Khan) when nobody wanted him. I cast Raveena Tandon when nobody knew her.”
Vaswani, a longtime friend of Khan, notes that “SRK has no entourage cost, he pays his own”, as does Akshay Kumar. “Lots of them do that, they don’t burden the producers,” he said. “If you think your star is stronger than your script, you are wrong.” (AFP)
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Actor Aziz Ansari, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by a woman with whom he went on a date last year, has responded to the claims saying the two engaged in "sexual activity, which by all indications was completely consensual".
The 34-year-old actor's statement comes after a 23-year-old Brooklyn-based photographer recounted a date with him that she called "the worst night of my life" in an interview with Babe.net.
"In September of last year, I met a woman at a party. We exchanged numbers. We texted back and forth and eventually went on a date.
"We went out to dinner, and afterwards we ended up engaging in sexual activity, which by all indications was completely consensual," Ansari said in a statement given to People magazine.
The Master of None actor further said a text by the woman, named as 'Grace' in the article, said that she felt uneasy with how things transpired the night before and responded to her privately as he was "concerned" about her.
"The next day, I got a text from her saying that although 'it may have seemed okay,' upon further reflection, she felt uncomfortable. It was true that everything did seem okay to me, so when I heard that it was not the case for her, I was surprised and concerned. I took her words to heart and responded privately after taking the time to process what she had said," he said.
Ansari, who became the first man of Asian descent to win Golden Globe recently for his performance in the Netflix show, added he supported the movement that has given women a chance to speak up about the injustice they have been subjected to till date.
"I continue to support the movement that is happening in our culture. It is necessary and long overdue," he said.
In the interview, the woman vividly described how she exchanged numbers with Ansari at the 2017 Emmy Awards after- party and went on a date with him on a bar on the banks of the Hudson river, which escalated quickly to a sexual encounter at his apartment.
The woman said she voiced her hesitation explicitly during their encounter.
She said she "used verbal and non-verbal cues to indicate how uncomfortable and distressed she was". The woman added that her reticence to engage in the act was "ignored" by the actor.
Grace alleged Ansari called her a cab when she wanted to leave and texted her the next day.
She shared a screenshot of the alleged conversation, in which she said, "Last night might've been fun for you, but it wasn't for me. You ignored clear non-verbal cues; you kept going with advances."
To this the actor allegedly replied, "I'm so sad to hear this. All I can say is, it would never be my intention to make you or anyone feel the way you described. Clearly, I misread things in the moment and I'm truly sorry."
Grace said she decided to come forward with the incident after she saw Ansari wearing a Time's Up pin at the Golden Globe Awards last week, where he won best comedy actor in a TV series.
"It took a really long time for me to validate this as sexual assault. I was debating if this was an awkward sexual experience or sexual assault. And that's why I confronted so many of my friends and listened to what they had to say, because I wanted validation that it was actually bad," she said in the interview.