Aamir Khan spent Rs 200 cr on Laal Singh Chaddha, ‘wasted money’ on expensive deleted scene in China, continued paying crew despite stoppages

Aamir said he was aware that Laal Singh Chaddha did not have the ingredients of a mainstream film, and yet, he ended up spending Rs 200 crore on its production. “I knew the film will earn one-third of Dangal. That film had earned Rs 385 crore, so I knew Laal Singh Chaddha will earn between Rs 100-120 crore. I was supposed to fix my budget based on this projection. When you know your film will earn you Rs 120 crore, you can keep your budget up to Rs 80 crore, maximum. Ideally, it should have been between Rs 50 crore or Rs 60 crore. However, we ended up spending Rs 200 crore.” Dangal’s India collection is Rs 385 crore. It earned over Rs 2,000 crore worldwide. Meanwhile, Laal Singh Chaddha opened at Rs 11 crore in India and made a lifetime collection of just Rs 133.5 crore worldwide.

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‘COVID-19 made things worse’

Aamir said that the pandemic increased costs, as it did with several others films that were affected by it. “We were hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. We underwent huge losses during that period because I had not stopped my payments. I thought, as a producer, I can’t leave my workers unpaid. That increased our cost,” he said. Another mistake that Aamir made was traveling to another country to complete the shoot. “We were under the impression that it was just India that was hit by the virus, so we planned to go abroad to shoot rest of the film. We travelled there during COVID, all out of desperation, because my film was stuck. It was half-made. A lot of money went into the travel, and that too was wasted,” he said. He added: “We had shot a huge sequence of him playing table tennis. He goes all the way to China to play the match. That scene didn’t make it to the final edit, so all this wastage added to the cost of the film, and COVID-19 made it worse.”

In the same interview, the actor shared how he always knew that Laal Singh Chaddha was not a mainstream film, but it cost as much as one. “When I sat with Advait (Chandan, director) for a discussion on the film, I remember telling him clearly, ‘This is not a mainstream film’. He was surprised. He asked, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘There are three things – its premise was a question, the story doesn’t follow the plot but its character, and its sub-plot lasts longer than the main plot.’ These things made me realise it was not a mainstream film.”

When Boney Kapoor suffered major loss due to COVID-19 pandemic

Previously, also speaking with Komal Nahta, producer Boney Kapoor shared how COVID-19 increased his film Maidaan’s budget from Rs 120 crore to Rs 210 crore.

“Nobody knew that the lockdown will be extended for so many months. I kept the unit here until the last flight of the country was announced. This happened with me about four times. Apart from the pandemic, I also suffered because of cyclone that came during that time. My entire stadium set was wiped out. Who do I explain all this to? The budget that we decided for the film was Rs 120 crore, but we eventually ended up spending about Rs 210 crore,” he said.

Due to the pandemic, and the SOPs, Boney was mandated to keep at least four ambulances and doctors on set. To avoid infection, he ordered food from Taj for a unit of about 800 people. He also spent in crores for bottled water, which, according to him, was enough to produce a small budget film.

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