Karan Johar admits over 50% of a movie’s profit goes to ‘delusional’ stars: ‘It is harder to negotiate with actors’

He said, “Unfortunately, the pie of it is with the movie stars, which should not be the case. It’s not that every movie star can open a film at every given point in time. But you are paying them top dollar. If it’s a big director then the divide is: 50 to the star and 30 to the director, a little more to the writer, and the producer is the last person to make the money.”

But Karan mentioned how today’s generation of actors will never enjoy the ‘superstardom’ which is enjoyed by Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan and Amitabh Bachchan, among others. He said, “Any of our new generation of movie stars can’t have the aura and magic of Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan, Mr Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgn and Hrithik Roshan, they were the last of the Mohicans.”

He continued, “See fame and superstardom are two different things. You can be a YouTuber and be famous. But are you a superstar? Will people stop and stand in a line just because of you? That ain’t happening anymore.”

He elaborated on the distribution of profits on the basis of two categories, superstar economics and non-superstar economics. Karan shared, “In the superstars’ economics, 60-70% goes to the star. In the non-superstar economics, maybe 20, 30 and then divided by… if the director is big, then the writer, then technicians and then it gets divided equally after that.”

As a producer, Karan Johar finds it harder to negotiate with the actors in comparison to distributors. “It is harder to negotiate with the actors than with the distributors. Because there we are combating delusions. Delusion is one disease which has no vaccination. I can’t tell people the truth that you opened to this, this, this in the last four films, now why are you asking me for this? You ask me what you opened to. You are opening to Rs 5 crore, I should give you Rs 5 crore,” said Karan.

But it gets difficult for the filmmaker to deal with the ‘delusions’ of the actors because, “You don’t want to hurt or upset somebody, because eventually, they are stars, they come with fragile egos, they come with their management which is sometimes the bigger stars. I have a management agency of my own and I keep telling them, ‘Please, you must work for the producer and must not work for the actor.’ It’s not an unpragmatic producer, it’s someone who is giving you data and analysis, at least listen to him.”

During the conversation, Karan Johar also spoke about how sometimes, despite being a hit, some films fail to earn money, and sometimes, even a theatrical flop can ensure big returns for a film producer.

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