Salman Khan is turning a 'partner' again, though of a different kind for his next release READY. He is now in a profit sharing deal with Bhushan Kumar who is producing the film. This is in continuation to the ongoing trend where top superstars get into a partnership mode for the film (hence leading to risk being distributed) instead of taking a fat pay check home.
Informs a trade insider, "When READY was launched, it had a huge budget allocated to it. (Salman) Bhai was also signed at a very high price and the producers didn't have any hesitation as the market was speeding up with revenues expected in the range of the 125-150 crores. Though many were apprehensive if such recovery would be a possibility in today's fluctuating market, the makers still went ahead."
However, 2010 saw the biggest of multi crore extravaganzas falling flat at the box office with KITES, RAAVAN and GUZAARISH being the biggest causalities. All of this led to a rethinking and quick action was taken to control the spending on READY. Correction in the industry also meant that there was room for renegotiation. This is when a new plan was chalked out for Salman and the actor taken on board.
Confirms Bhushan who is candid enough to admit that a budget reduction was a definite need of the situation for READY to progress any further, "Yes, Salman and I did have a heart-to-heart chat about this. He too has been in business for long and understands how the dynamics work. We restructured the entire deal and he was happy with the proposal. The sharing formula works for all involved."
The producer maintains though that there is no compromise on the film's quality and the budget would still touch around 55-60 crores. "To recover that kind of spending is still pretty much possible. With DABANGG behind Salman, we have no doubts about that and are pretty confident", he signs off. |
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