Karan Johar says star fees breaking back of producers, entourage cost is the ‘least’ of their concern: ‘Stars not in touch with reality’

At the trailer launch of his upcoming production Kill, Indianexpress.com asked the filmmaker about the issue. Karan Johar, who also runs a talent management agency, said high star fee isn’t always “viable”, which makes it difficult to mount a film.

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“The entourage cost is the least of our worry. It’s the main remuneration of the actors that has to be looked into. It’s very critical for all the actors to understand exactly how the times are, how the climate of our movies are, how tough and difficult it is to maneuver through making a motion picture of any magnitude or size.

“It is very difficult, there are so many costs— the PnA (Publicity and advertising) costs and if the above the line cost, which is what comes from the actors, is not viable, then it becomes important to mount a film. Every single movie star today has to review what they’re asking for.” The filmmaker said often there will be certain producers who will pay exorbitant fee to actors just so their films are made, but the practice will eventually “cause a lot of damage to the entire system.”

Karan Johar also runs a talent management agency.

He added, “They (actors) can take all the entourage they want, that is not the problem. While it’s adding to our costs, the real issue is the mothership cost. They’ve to look at that. There can be backend deals, percentage of profits, slabs of box office as per performance based remuneration. All that is possible, but every actor has to look within because a lot of them are not really in touch with reality.”

Various film producer bodies and heads of the biggest talent management agencies in Bollywood began the first round of meetings last week to tackle the menace of entourage cost and star fee, which has severely burdened productions and forced everyone, except the lead stars, to take a huge pay cut.

As the next meeting is expected to take place this week, key stakeholders have already begun talks internally to arrive at a “sustainable” solution as the Hindi film industry finds itself dealing with a huge crisis of funds, with fingers pointed towards star fees and overhead costs.